There is so much to worry about when having a baby. You have to keep yourself healthy for the good of your baby. You have to plan what you’re going to need, how you’re going to afford everything, who is going to take care of your baby if you go back to work. You have to pick a name! It’s so much to think about, and it never ends.

So why should newborn photos be something you should plan for?

Newborn baby wrapped with a forest green wrap and laying in a rustic wooden bowl for his newborn photos.

Because the short, fleeting window of a newborn – those first 2-3 weeks of life – are the closest we get to seeing and holding the little one that first lived within us.

We can get a peek with ultrasounds.  We can dream and imagine based on those.  We can feel a forceful kick and say, “They’re going to be so strong!” or they can keep us up when we are trying to sleep and we say, “They’re already stubborn like me!”

And then we get to meet them.  We count all their fingers and toes, we see how much and what color hair they have.  We search their features and find our own in them.  

And, as they get to know us, and this world they’ve been born into, they feel safest when curled up just like they were in our bellies.  Toes-to-chin, hands near their face.  Before too long they’ll get used to the freedom of space – they’ll find joy in stretching and kicking and exploring everything.  They will learn that they will always be safe with us. 

newborn baby wrapped in soft gray Angora wrap wearing a lacy bonnet.

But for these first few weeks, when they are as small as they will ever be in the outside world, all they want is to be curled up close, and warm, and secure.

Newborn photos bridge the gap between an unknown life growing within us and the person they will become.  They preserve that smallness, those first little features, so that we can look back as our kids grow and we can say “I can still see that was you, you still have that dimple.” 

Newborn photos give you art based on *your* real life, so that, while you are caught up in all the every day tasks, navigating the new role of parenthood, changing what feels like endless diapers and cleaning endless bottles, doing it all with less sleep than before – you are reminded that there is beauty in it too. 

sleeping newborn baby wrapped in a jewel toned green wrap, laying in a gray crate.

And when you emerge from this stage, it might feel like it was all a blur, a dream – but you can look back and see that, yes, it was beautiful.

Want to know more about newborn sessions? Read about when newborn sessions should take place here.

Thinking about booking in for a session? Contact me here.