You are excited about the new baby that is joining your family soon and you want to make sure you get the best photos to be able to remember this special time. As a lifestyle OKC newborn photographer I am here to let you stay present in those early moments and would be thrilled to capture the memories for you! But you likely are wondering when do you contact a photographer to schedule that session? When is the best time to make sure you don’t miss out? So…
When should I schedule newborn photos?
I recommend to my clients to book their session at around 25ish weeks. Why this early? Because it allows you to make sure you have gotten a spot on my calendar and can for sure get those photos. Now of course if you are 30 weeks pregnant or 36 weeks or maybe you’ve even had your baby go ahead and reach out to me! While my schedule does fill up quick, I do keep my schedule pretty flexible so often have room for one or two last minute sessions. (Plus a lot of folks don’t get them scheduled until 32-24 weeks. :))
The other benefit of scheduling your newborn photos at 30 weeks or even before is you can take advantage of my maternity session add on! I offer a special maternity session just for families who book a newborn session. Maternity photo sessions are best at 30-34 weeks so you want to plan ample time for that.
Another added benefit of going ahead and scheduling before baby arrives is you can go ahead and plan out what to wear for the session. This eliminates some last minute decisions to make after baby arrives. (pss I offer all my clients access to an online styling service and am now offer a simple client closet for mamas if they wish!)
As a documentary newborn photographer, I’m not demanding you get the baby into the studio before they are 10 days old like a studio photographer needs them to be. Instead lifestyle newborn photography allows a lot of flexibility as to when the session is. So we schedule in a date approximately around your due date. Then when baby arrives you let me know and I’ll give you my available dates in the next few week. From there we will figure out which one works best and get it done!
When you schedule your newborn photos within the first 2 weeks your baby usually is quite sleepy for the session. As we reach the 2-4 week mark they will often be awake for most of the session. I do give plenty of time at the session so we will try to see if we can get baby both awake and asleep. But let me say, awake babies are super cute!
One challenge at the 3-4 week mark is babies often break out in “baby acne” (the results of all those changing hormones as they adjust to the world!). But it is still quite okay to do the session then. Once baby reaches the 6-7 week mark then we are starting to see past the newborn stage and see more of their personality as an infant come out.
Whether you are expecting your baby or your baby is already here, reach out to me and let’s get your newborn session scheduled!
Some other related articles you can read about this are:
Is My Baby too Old for a newborn photos?
Reasons to choose an in home newborn session
