Hey, I'm Jay. I'm a dad of 3 gorgeous girls and a blue Staffy named Bonnie. I love photographing beautiful families just like yours. Are you ready to book in a family portrait session? Fill out your details and I'll give you a call.
by Jay
When is the best time to have your newborn photos done? I get asked this a lot from expecting mums from new families. The correct answer is it doesn’t really matter. Newborns look cute at every stage. You can see different things in them at different stages of their infancy.
So for example, in the first 10 days is when they’re fast asleep completely passed out and milk drunk. That’s when their eyes are shut. Generally their eyes aren’t open and they’re nice and soft and squishy and you can get all those lovely little tiny feet and tiny hands photos. This is when they’re going to be obviously at their littlest.
Some mums don’t like to leave their house for a while. They’ve just had the baby and it’s overwhelming and they just want to chill out and enjoy that one-on-one time with their baby so they want to do it when the baby is a bit older.
Some families want to wait until the baby’s vaccinated before they take them out to the studio for a photo shoot, which is totally fine. So really in the first seven to 10 days if you want those really fast asleep, newborn tiny squishy photos, that’s the best time to do it.
After the 10 to 12 day mark, some babies start getting milk pimples and rashes. They can get blotchy skin and eczema once their skin starts to react to the outside environment.
That’s very difficult for us as photographers to edit and fix up. So if you miss that first 10 to 12 days and that happens, I would suggest waiting until that clears up which that could be a week or so. It could be longer but it’s better to just wait until the skin’s cleared up a little bit.
At one or two months old, their eyes are open they’re interacting with you more. They’re looking at you; maybe they’ve started smiling a little bit so you can get those lovely interactive photos. I’ll get some nice closeups of the eyes and details, and you can still get those lovely hands and feet photos. They’ll be a little bit bigger, but still cute and tiny.
So that’s a good stage as well beyond that, then you starting to move into the sitter stage where, they’re roughly four to six months old. They’re starting to go on their tummy and sitting up and that’s cute as well. And they’re definitely laughing and giggling and you can throw them around and have a bit of fun, and can potentially even go outside for these photos.
So the short answer to when is the best time to have newborn photos done? Anytime is fine. Just be aware that from that 10 to 12 day mark sometimes babies do start to get pimples and rashes and things like that, which you may not want. However, some people don’t mind! It’s their baby, it’s beautiful is that they love it no matter what. Otherwise let the skin clear up and do your newborn photos at a slightly later stage.
