Are you expecting a new bundle of joy and wondering what’s the best time to hold a newborn photo session?  You may’ve heard that you need to do a newborn session as soon as possible after the baby is born – usually within first 10 days.  And I would definitely agree with that – if you would like to have sleepy cuddly posed baby images, that is.   A few days after the birth babies are still sleeping most of the time (although for a lot of them this sleeping occurs mostly during daytime hours and not at night!), are very moldable and that’s a perfect time to capture beautiful images of sleeping newborns.

My Bergen county photography studio, located in Ridgewood, is perfect for these types of sessions – it has great natural light (and studio lighting equipment for cloudy days), lots of space for everybody to spread out and plenty of props to choose from.  With these sessions I focus primary on the baby (and capture all beautiful details of them!) but there are also plenty of images with parents, brothers and sisters and a grandparents if they are there for the session.

If posed studio newborn images are not what you are looking for, then a great alternative is an at-home lifestyle photo session.  These photo sessions are very different from Ridgewood studio newborn sessions that I offer.  With these sessions the focus is on the family – snuggling up with the new baby in the family room, rocking her to sleep in her nursery, hanging out on a big family bed together.  If you spent time setting up and decorating the baby’s nursery, if you have special meaningful pieces of furniture or art that you would like to include in the session – this is a great session to do that.  And if you have other children then this is the session I would definitely recommend over a studio newborn session because we would also be able to capture your other kid(s) in their natural habitat – playing with their toys, reading their favorite books, monkeying around – and doing all their favorite things.  Think of this session as a family session with a newborn focus:)

I recommend scheduling lifestyle family photo sessions about 6-8 weeks after the baby is born.  By this time the baby is more alert and awake and makes more eye contact and has a lot more personality.  Some of them even smile when they look at their parent – and who would not want to capture their babies first smiles on camera?!  Waiting a bit after the birth also gives parents (especially the Moms) a bit more time to recover from delivery and get settled into a life with a newborn.

So the type of  a newborn photo session you should choose really depends on the type of images you would like me to capture.  But I promise you that you will be happy with the results no matter the session type:)

This Ridgewood family opted for an at-home lifestyle photo session at their home.  We were going back and forth about the timing of it and in the end they took my advice and scheduled it for when baby G. was about 8 weeks old.  The parents absolutely loved the images we captured!

There was lots of laughter:

and snuggles:

There were beautiful moments shared between these parents:

and a stunning little girl:

There was plenty of time for big brother G. to play with his dad:

and some quality Daddy/Daughter time:

and there was enough time hang out and read together as a family of four:

I absolutely loved meeting this family for their Ridgewood family session and cannot wait to watch these kids grow!