I’ve got a fun blog for you today. Here, I’ve listed different moments in your baby’s first year that should be photographed. You can do these on your own and aren’t too fussy. At the end, I do give my recommendation of when to hire a photographer.

Every month.

First up is every month! You did it with your belly, now you can do it with your growing baby. The first year of a child is the most face paced, growth wise. You will be amazed at how much they change in 1 month. You can even reuse those month numbers you used for your pregnancy. Don’t know what I’m talking about? (Check out last week’s blog about must have photos every mom needs.) They sell so many cute month props now. Stickers, onesies, frames, blankets, etc. When your baby turns one, you can make a collage of those pictures and gift them to everyone for coming to the big celebration.

Every holidays.

Playing dress up for all the occasions is so fun! Dress up your little one on St-Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc. I did it with my babies. They sat in baskets with Easter eggs, in cut out pumpkins, and were wrapped up like a gift surrounded by Christmas lights. Get creative! If you need inspiration, you can check for ideas on popular apps like Pinterest.

Every firsts.

There will be many firsts but the big ones that are memorable are the first smile, the first roll over, the first food, the first crawl and the first steps. If you take the picture with your phone you can write on the photo what is happening in that moment or you can caption it on your social media account. Capture them all (that sounds like a Pokémon catch phrase…) and don’t forget to back them up. There are many cloud apps that can help with that. My favorite is Google Photos. If you book a photoshoot with us, you will receive a digital album that you can view with that app.

Photo challenges.

Have you heard of a 365 photo challenge? There are lots of websites that offer ideas for what to picture everyday of the year. I’ve never done any but they sound really cool. I feel like I would forget most of the time (Anyone else has mommy brain real bad?)! If I would though, I would print out a book at the end of the year and caption each portrait. Okay, so now I kind of want to do it! If you’ve done this before, please share your thoughts.

Every 3 or 6 months.

What if you would like more formal portraits? Then you could hire a photographer for different milestones in your baby’s first year. My recommendation would be, as a newborn, at 3 months, at 6 months, at 9 months and on their first birthday. Basically, every 3 months. If that’s too much you could do a newborn, a half birthday and a birthday session. Figure out a reasonable budget for your family’s professional photos. You could also time your portraits with any of the mini-sessions your favorite photographer is offering.

CL