I can’t believe our baby boy is three months old already. Time has flown by so fast, and the experience of having a baby when you already have a child truly is way different than having a baby for the first time. One of the most interesting things about having another baby I find is seeing that they develop their own personality very early on. And this, as you will see, even shows in the images I shoot of them.
If you haven’t read our birth story, please check it out; And then we were four – meet our newborn son.
Things changing as our family grow
I think every parent can agree that going from being a family of only grown ups to having a baby is a huge change. When we told we were having another baby everyone kept telling us “one feels like one, and two feels like ten”. We haven’t noticed the eight kids we don’t have yet, but it really is a different experience.
When we had our oldest, I was in a pretty bad shape. And the first year was hard because I wasn’t able to be the parent I had envisioned I would be. However looking back at it, we have decided that we were really lucky to both be home with the baby together almost the whole first year of his life.
A totally different experience
This time around it’s a totally different experience for me. I’m working every day like most parents that don’t carry the baby, and I get to spend significantly less time with our little boy. I find I have to be very focused and present the few hours I get with both my baby boy and our oldest son every day.
Having an older child also demands a different way of prioritizing than when we only had our oldest. When he was a baby, he was center of attention all the time. We could tend to his every need when it occurred and he had us both to himself. Even if this has been a huge change for both us and him, all three of us are so happy that we now belong to a family of four.
Brothers, but definitely not made in the same mold
Baby boy is tiny. At least we feel that he is since comparing him to how big his older brother was is almost impossible to avoid. And we have found that they’re not only different in size, there are some other differences as well.
During the first two months baby boy slept most of the time. Totally normal. Even so, after having had a baby that was very much awake and alert the first time around, we wondered if baby boy would ever be awake long enough to start communicating with us. Once he did start to be more awake, we found that he is a curious and very attentive boy.
His personality is showing
I think he has a lot of humor. He smiles and tries to make us smile. He giggles when his older brother plays with him, and he has long conversations and keeps eye contact throughout the conversation.
High noises is his worst enemy. That’s the only thing that can make him terrified. So having carpenters over to do some work on our house has not been his favorite.
His favorite place to sleep is outside. He falls to sleep in his stroller the moment we step out the door. Baby boy also enjoys being carried a lot more than his older brother did, and his attention is more focused on the family and familiar things. He has started to try and sit himself up already when we lay him on his back, and he is so strong lifting his head high when on his stomach.
Photographing baby boy – a few tips for photographing babies
I got to photograph our oldest a lot, and I really wanted to have as many images of our baby boy. Needless to say there is less time to shoot with this one. Work and making sure his big brother gets the attention he deserves has made me have to plan shoots ahead instead of capturing every moment that gets me inspired to fetch the camera. Hence I have had to come up with a few methods to make sure a shoot doesn’t take too much time, and I thought I’d share them with you guys.
1. Make sure baby is well fed and rested before a shoot. A tired or hungry baby does not want to be photographed.
2. Make sure the location is warm and cozy. A comfortable baby is a much more pleasant baby to shoot.
3. Use natural light and check your settings with a doll or a teddy bear before you start shooting. Most babies will not have the patience for you to figure out the best light or settings for the shoot.
4. Don’t ask parents to stand behind you to connect with the baby. The images will show that baby weren’t looking at you. Make sure you connect with baby yourself, so you get baby to look through the lens.
5. Make sure you focus on the eyes. The eyes are the window to something so much bigger than we can ever understand. Eye contact with a baby feels like looking into a miracle. Capture that.
6. Don’t overdo setup or post editing. Babies don’t wear tutus, sleep in weird positions, have flawless skin or bright pink lips and cheeks. Let babies be what they are, naturally perfect.
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed this post. And if you did, I hope you’ll make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss out on posts to come. Also consider following me on Instagram and Twitter! I wish you the very best of days!
