Sometimes young babies make annoyingly weird faces when you’re trying to take a picture to prove to the world how cute they really are.
In the first couple months, I found that Julian was actually a very good model while he slept. He didn’t cry or cross his eyes or make a rooting face. He was peaceful and pleasant and I’m glad I captured it on film. I ended up using a sleeping photo for our holiday card.
How to do it:
- Locate a well lit corner of your house
- Place unswaddled baby on solid colored piece of fabric, such as sheet, blanket or pillow case
- Stand above baby looking down to shoot picture
- For best results, do not use zoom or flash– move camera or lighting instead












My friend Molly sent me a picture when baby Finn was sleeping. At the time, I was thrilled that she was using the receiving blanket I gave her.
Later on, when Holden was 16 weeks old and his sleeping schedule was all over the place, she sent me the same picture to reassure me that babies do sleep.
A great, great idea — especially for cards. Those little buggers are so hard to pose! I found, however, that sneaking into a dark room and blasting my daughter with a flash works quite well. Of course, I would only do this at the tail end of a very long nap, rather than the middle of the night. Unless you don’t mind a terrified baby at 3 a.m.
[...] Make sure the baby (and you) are rested, fed and watered. Everything goes smoothly with a happy baby and mommy. A sleeping baby is more patient than an awake baby and the photos are great. [...]
[...] Whitney has some other good ideas for artfully photographing a sleeping baby. [...]
[...] gives us some excellent tips on photographing those angelic fall-asleep-anywhere newborns, but since I don’t currently own one of those models, I had to try a different [...]