what is the ideal age for a newborn photoshoot?

You’ll often hear the ideal age for a newborn photoshoot is ASAP- or more specifically within the first two weeks following your baby’s arrival earthside. This is a general rule of thumb that in an ideal world allows us photographers to achieve a full gallery of sleepy newborn photos!

Generally, the younger the baby the more sleepy they are, and more likely to still curl up into the womb like poses.

As an in home newborn photographer working throughout Sydney, I am limited by the amount of props, wraps & outfits i can bring along to any given shoot- i focus on newborn only- meaning 5-12 days old is the perfect time for me to photograph your baby.

That being said- i don’t want anyone to miss out on newborn photos so i will take bookings for older babies, it just means expectations on what poses can and can’t be achieved need to be managed. Ultimately it comes down to your little one’s personality- some babies are just more chilled than others no matter their age!

Sometimes your newborn shoot can’t be held during the “ideal” period due to medical issues- in the case of these two beautiful twin boys, they arrived well ahead of schedule and were in hospital for many weeks. I finally got to photograph them at 3 months of age! Given they were early they were still quite small but had spent so much time outside the womb they weren’t overly keen to be wrapped back into womb like poses- so i had to work with them to ensure they were posed approriately for their age and needs.

This sweet little baby girl was born during one of Sydney’s covid waves after we had opened back up from lockdown- her parents decided to cancel her session just to be on the safe side which was perfectly understandable. Many weeks later they felt more comfortable proceeding, so at 7weeks old we scheduled her newborn photoshoot. She was quite alert for much of the session, however after a nice big feed she drifted off to sleep and we were able to get a variety of newborn poses, much to the delight of her parents.

The parents of this little girl got in touch when she was 6 weeks old. She was incredibly alert and not a big fan of sleep. Whilst we didn’t manage to get the traditional sleepy curled up shots, we were able to capture some beautiful eye contact and delivered a full gallery to her parents.

Following the final lockdown in Sydney in 2021 i had a backlog of babies who had been born, that i wasn’t able to photograph in the newborn stage- this left me with 3-4mth olds! Obviously there wasn’t going to be any sleepy curled up shots, instead we focussed on all those new skills the baby’s were learning, like smiling, and tummy time & their interactions with mum and dad- they are so much fun at this age.

So in conclusion- in reality there is no real “perfect” age to photograph your baby. If you are after the sleepy, womb- like poses then the earlier the better- it’s these shoots i specialise in day in , day out- however babies are such fun and it’s an honour to photograph them at any age- you just have to adjust your expectations as to the types of poses you’ll get from an older baby.

If you like my style and want to know more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch