CAPTURING YOUR BABY'S FIRST YEAR
Our Children are only little for such a short period of time, I often say to my clients you don’t need a TV when you have a newborn. I know with mine I could watch them for hours soaking in their newness, breathing in that amazing new baby smell and embracing their softness. Your friends and family will tell you it will go so quickly but you won’t believe them. You’ll get to their 1st Birthday and realise that it did go in the blink of an eye, but if you are organised you’ll have documented that first year in photos to remind you of all the little details. I don’t just mean professional photos, make sure you capture all those little moments even if it’s with your phone!
Here are a few of the 1st year development milestones:
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between 6 – 8 weeks babys often smile their first ‘social’ smile, and suddenly you’ll forget about all those sleepless nights and your heart will melt!
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2 -3 months your little person may be able to roll over onto their tummy but they won’t yet be able to roll back.
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At around 3 to 4 months they will start grabbing things.
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At 5 months you may be lucky enough to get a hug, however don’t forget just like adults some babies are naturally more affectionate than others!
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At 6 months they’ll adore to play peekaboo and other games!
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6 – 8 months they’ll be able to sit up.
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6-10 months they may be crawling
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At 8 months they may be pulling themselves up and cruising around furniture.
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Between a 10 to 18 months they’ll be walking.
If you are wishing to document your baby’s first year with professional images then I feel there are three key milestones that in my opinion employing a professional would be advantageous.
In terms of images for this page I decided to focus and one little person to give you an idea of the type of images you could achieve. Meet Logan, I've loved photographing him throughout his first year. His lovely parents decided to bring him to the studio as a newborn, for his sitting session and then a cake smash. I've loved every minute of him being in the studio and watching him grow!''
NEWBORN AND SITTING SHOOTS
Newborn Photography
I find that most clients like to book their newborn shoot between their 12 and 20 week scan. All bookings are based on your estimated due date. The actual date of your shoot isn’t confirmed until your little one has arrived.
The ideal age is when your baby is 7 – 14 days. If you would like sleepy shots I would definitely say before 3 weeks. But all babies are different, so I would recommend that you contact me before your little one is 3 weeks.
Some photographers refuse to do newborn photo shoots past the two-week mark. My take on this is that it really does depend on your newborn. How settled they are and how deeply they sleep. The most important thing if your baby is over three weeks is to have an open mind to what images we might capture. If you do leave your newborn photo shoot till your baby is six weeks then we have the potential of catching some of those first smiles too, but we might not get any sleepy shots.
It’s up to you to do what you feel most comfortable and how much you want those sleepy shots.
In these images Logan was 16 Days, and as you can see we got all those sleepy poses that his Mummy and Daddy wanted!
Sitting Shoots
This is a great stage to capture! Firstly babies at this age are stationary, so that makes life very easy! Secondly they are smiling and responding! The session fee for a sitting session is £75, but previous newborn clients get this session fee waived!
In these images Logan was seven and a half months old and full of beans! I loved the little outfit that his Mummy bought for the occasion, but I also love that we got some simple images of Logan in just his nappy, at this age they're still very little and we need to celebrate that too.
1ST BIRTHDAY CAKE SMASH SHOOTS
1st Birthday Cake Smash Shoots
Well what can I say! I have been doing Cake Smash Sessions for 7 years now and they are so much fun and judging from the parent’s reaction they love them too!
Cake Smash sessions are geared towards your child having a great time! The cake is a very small part of the session and is just a messy play opportunity for your 1 year old.
Before we introduced Logan to his birthday cake, we got some gorgeous images of Logan having a play in the studio. I always take time to make sure your little one is feeling happy and confident in the studio before I launch into taking photos.
On this occasion Logan seemed quite happy straight from the start, and we got some fantastic images of him, it's always amazing to me how much and how little they change in that first year, when you look at Logan's newborn images you can totally see it looks like him! But in other ways he's changed so much!
The birthday cake was introduced to Logan once I felt he was getting a bit bored, so it's a great distraction. Logan's Mummy had told me that he really loved his food so I wasn't surprised that Logan launched straight into smashing his cake. The theme for his cake was chosen because he loves 'Duck In The Truck' and 'Noisy Farm' books so Logan's parents requested a farm yard themed cake with a cow, sheep and a duck as a cake toppers with no.1 on top of the cake. I think you'll agree that my talented cake maker did an amazing job!
Once Logan had finished with his cake. we put what was left of the cake away and popped him in the bath in the studio to clean up! Logan loved the bath as much as he enjoyed his cake and had a lovely time splashing and playing, while I got some great shots of him.
I hope you can see by these images that my shoots are very much led by your child's wishes and needs, right from Newborn, to Sitting to Cake Smash. Photo shoots shouldn't be stressful they should be fun!
This is the email of got from Logan's Mummy when she viewed her images. "These photos are amazing!!! :-) This was such a hard task, we really, really tried to get them down to 20 prints, but that just wasn’t possible. It got to the point when we had to admit the defeat, lol. If I could, I would have kept them all!"
If you'd like to capture your little one's first year please do get in touch.