I photographed this little beauty on Saturday morning. She was right in the middle of her 3-week growth spurt and made me work for it but time, patience, lots of food, womb sounds and loud shushing resulted in some final sleeping images that are just adorable as well as some great looks of wide eyed wonder.

Isn’t she just the sweetest thing you have ever seen? The sweetness of newborns never stops amazing me. She was a sleeper, and the last of my Fresh Faces models. I’ve had babies who couldn’t be woken up for love, money or even food and babies who couldn’t be coaxed to sleep even in an 85 degree room with full tummies. That’s one thing you always have to remember about photographing newborns – you just have to go with the flow.

Now this little sweetie was older than I usually like to do newborns; she was over 3 weeks. I like to schedule them in that 4-7 day range as that, usually, makes for sleepy babies who still curl up into adorable little balls. Once they get a little older the shoot can be harder as they are more alert, less, well, bendy and 3 weeks can be a very difficult age as that 3-week newborn growth spurt can result in a baby who wants to eat 20 hours out of the day. As you can undoubtedly tell from her picture she was, despite her advanced age of 3 weeks, quite happy to sleep.

Newborn portraits are such a delight to do. I get to see all the wonder of new life. Sure, I get peed on during most sessions (though not, actually, during this one). And urped on. And now and again I get pooped on, but there is a reason I wear jeans to the sessions and the joy of a little baby is more than worth the many fluids that come out of them. All of which is to say, in the babbly way that lets you know it’s been an interesting day with my twins, that I have the best job in the world.

One thing I learned when I had babies – you can’t make a baby do anything. You really have to go with the flow and be prepared to follow the child’s lead. So, though I encourage people to look through both the Simply Babies gallery and the Dreams & Stories gallery to let me know about any specific poses they would like to capture the reality is that some babies don’t sleep soundly enough to hang in a sling, some babies won’t lay their heads on their hands and some babies will shriek in fury if they are draped over an arm. Newborn poses are wholly dependent upon the temperament of the baby. It’s part of what makes your baby portrait special to your family – even in the simplest baby sleeping pose you see the personality and characteristics of this new little person, unique, wonderful and wholly his or her own self, even at 7 days old.

Of course, that isn’t so bad. I think it’s awfully sweet. In all truth, if I were working out of an actual studio and paying overhead and such I’d be hanging that one as a giant sample on the walls. We had been shooting up in this room for a while and were about to head downstairs to to the “head in hands” shot when big sister and baby brother settled in for a snuggle. I couldn’t resist. And I just love the result.

The head-in-hands is a classic I almost always do. These are mom’s hands; we did a set with each older sister as well for the perfect triptych.

And, despite being such an ancient baby this guy slept like champ too.