Pack the car the day before
What I mean here is do as much prep for your session the day before as possible. If your session is in the studio, pack all the essentials (like your go bag~ water bottles, dry snacks, spare nappies, dummy etc) and outfits in the car the day before. This will help to reduce your stress levels and any "franticness" on the morning of your session. Happy mum, happy baby.
If your opting for an in-home session, the same applies but just organise the essentials and outfits and do any necessary packing away or tidying of the room we will be using the day prior.
Give baby a warm bath the morning of your session
There are two purposes to the warm bath. The first is to clean bub, focussing on any little bits of sleep in their eyes and fluff that can sometimes build up under their arms and in their skin folds. Secondly, it is also the perfect way to calm baby down and get them all ready for very tough job of napping for their family photos.
The closer you do this to the session start time the better, because a warm bath is a great way to get baby awake and alert and that leads me to my next tip...
Plan for an awake window before your session
Getting baby to expel a whole lot of energy with an awake window before their session is great as it helps with getting them to be exhausted and ready for a big nap, which helps us to achieve the gorgeous sleeping photos and close up detail shots that everyone loves. Don't stress yourself out over this though, the last thing I want is for you to feel stressed or worried, or for baby to be absolutely beside themselves from being overtired because the timing just didn't work. A calm mum and baby takes priority over a sleeping baby always.
Dress baby in as minimal clothing as possible before your session ~ a bonds zippy is ideal.
Only having to remove one layer from bub to dress them in a cute knit and wrap them in a blanket, is less stressful for bub than having to remove multiple layers and singlets. The smaller we can make the window of discomfort baby experiences while getting stripped down, dressed and wrapped for the session the better.
If its a cool day I recommend adding blanket layers to the top of baby while waiting of your session to start or on the way to the studio (**always unwrap baby before putting them in the carseat and place the blankets on top of the seatbelt** ~ I know you know, but I'm nutty about car seat safety and can't not say it haha)
Crank up the heat and blast the white noise
If your session is in home, creating a warm environment is always optimal. If your heading to the studio, I will have this sorted for you! I also have white noise which I can add to the session as and if needed.
Time bub's feed for the start of the session
Starting the session with a breast feed or bottle serves two purposes. Firstly, it's an amazing settling tool if baby gets upset after getting changed (which bubs so often do) and to settle them down for a nap. Secondly, its perfect if you want to capture some beautiful breastfeeding or bottle-feeding photos if you wish to have them (which I highly, highly recommend)
Snuggle, kiss, cuddle your baby and relax mama.
Nothing they do during their session is wrong, I promise.
