Fussy child during your family photography session?
At some point during your family photography session, your baby will cry. They may even cry the entire session and that is ok. Your young child may have absolutely no interest in being part of your family portraits. This is completely normal. This is coming from a Mom who had a daughter with colic from week 3 to week 15, and a one year old son that I stood with at the back of the airplane for 9 hours on our way home from Germany.
Babies and children are like grown adults, they have good days and bad days. They have times of the day when they are happy and times of they day when they are tired. The only difference is that they haven’t quite mastered being able to manage their feelings, moods and being verbally able to ask for something. And to be honest with you, some adults still haven’t mastered it :)
I want to share some pieces of information that will help keep parents at ease about this and ways I try to calm the environment.
I creatively capture those fussing moments.
When a baby first starts crying, I keep my camera going. I love capturing parents soothing their child. It is part of parenthood, a very big part. You will often see photos of the parents faces and the back of the baby’s head when this happens. You can’t tell the baby is fussing, but the expressions and reactions from the parents that I capture during these moments are priceless. Also, if you look closely at my photos, a lot of the time, the baby has a soother in their mouth. Not everyone chooses to use one and that is ok, but if you do, you can definitely use one during your session.
Music and movement are magic
Just like a good song can change our mood, music can perk up a little one. Just like a walk outside can calm our mind, a little movement for a baby can calm them. The first thing I suggest when a child or baby start fussing is music and movement. I will ask a parent if their child has a favorite tune or I will pop on a playlist. I will then ask a parent to bring their child close and slowly dance with them. Sometimes I will ask a parent to dance silly in the background to capture the child’s attention and sometimes you get a smirk.
We take breaks
Snack breaks, milk breaks, diaper changing breaks, a quick break to walk around the house. It is so important that my photography sessions mimic what you would do in your everyday life with your child. If your child is not a fan of wet diapers, I want to make sure that we keep them as happy as possible and change it like you normally do. If they have a bottle or nurse every 2 hours and that happens to be in the middle of our session, I want that routine to continue. Above are some photos that I have taken during “breaks”. A strawberry snack break with Mom and teamwork taking place to feed twins.
Just breath, it will all be ok
I always joke that I need to have a camera crew follow me around during photography sessions so that I can show parents how much really goes on behind the scenes. Even when the session isn’t going as the parents hoped it would, I am still able to create meaningful images that parents will be sure to love and cherish. I find the beauty in the chaos and want you to see it too. Take a deep breath, trust me and plan for a good nap after :)
