What Happens if My Newborn Won’t Sleep During Photos?

Everybody loves those sleepy, dreamy newborn poses where baby looks so incredibly relaxed that they could just melt into the snuggly blanket they are wrapped in. But what do we do if your baby just refuses to sleep during their newborn portrait session?! As you will quickly find out when you become a parent, nothing is really in your control because baby runs the show now! While I do have amazing tips and tricks that will settle almost any fussy newborn, some babies decide that the world is just far too interesting to sleep. They don’t want to miss a thing! Or, some babies are dealing with some tummy issues, gas, reflux, or other things that make it difficult for them to sleep. Even if your baby does not want to sleep during their session, I guarantee you we will end up with at least 20 different, incredibly adorable portraits of your baby, that captures all their newness, facial expressions, and precious details of them during this stage.

With an awake but calm baby, we can often continue on with many of the poses I do with sleeping babies, as long as they are still. If they are wiggly, I will wrap your baby up so they feel snug and secure, and so their hands are not flailing about, and I can pose them in one of my many props or on the bean bag with a backdrop. Wrapped and awake babies can be held for parent and sibling photos, placed in buckets or bowls, or I can create unique images on my backdrops while baby remains calmly swaddled.

If your baby is downright fussy, I pull out all the stops, and do everything to get them calm and relaxed. I use the 5 S’s method that is outlined in this blog post here. Once baby is fed, warm, and has a dry diaper, these techniques work like a charm. The key is patience and I remind all of my families that newborn sessions are the longest session we will ever do together. It can take up to 3 hours with all of the breaks we take for feeding, changing, and calming. The thing we all have to remember is to be flexible because and just work with whatever is comfortable for your baby and I promise I will deliver amazing photos no matter what!

Check out these precious portraits of these awake newborns. Sometimes I even catch them blinking and they look very peacefully asleep! The portraits with eyes open always end up being my parents’ favorite images from the whole session too, so I aim to get those every chance I get.