“You have a child forever, but a baby for just one year.”
Oh you’re good, really good, person who wrote that line for the Dreft laundry detergent commercial! That gets a tear from me each and every time it comes on TV.
Hitting that first year mark naturally brings out parents’ emotions. It’s a life-changing year. A whole new person joined the family and changed it and you forever. In just 12 months, this little person tripled his body weight, learned to smile, laugh, eat, sit, take steps and make you laugh! I’m going to stop with the sentiments right there, because they will certainly get the best of me.
Adriano celebrated his first birthday this week (in case you couldn’t tell), and I was excited to finally put together his first year in photos after taking the pictures each month. It’s amazing to see how much he changed from month to month!
I took the photos on his daddy’s pretty blue baby blanket that his grandmother made. The blanket happened to be the perfect size because I could fill my camera frame to the edges of it, so each picture is proportional and sized the same. That way you get a true idea of month to month growth.
Tips for taking your own monthly baby photos
- Try to take photo on the actual day of baby’s monthly birthday, not days or weeks later.
- Take the picture in the same location every time so the lighting is the same. If you can take it during the same time of day, that’s even better. (I took a few of these at different times of day and the blue in the blanket varied in shade quite a bit. I had to use a little Photoshop to fix it.)
- If you take pictures on a blanket, make sure baby stays all the way on the blanket. Be careful to get all her fingers and toes in the frame!
- Try to stand in the exact same spot every time, especially if baby is sitting in a chair. If baby is laying on a blanket, it’s easier because you will just rely on your height to get the same distance for each photo.
- When you take photos for the first month, upload them on your computer right away to make sure the lighting and positioning works, because you’ll need to follow that routine for each of the following 11 months.
Here are some more tips on how to photograph babies and toddlers.
And here’s a template for 10 yearly birthday questions. It’s a fun tradition to look back on, as well.
It requires a little planing to making it happen, but it sure is fun to see the end result!
I just saw your work on Pinterest. It is absolutely perfect in my opinion! I work on a team that reviews child fatalities, I can’t imagine how difficult losing a child is. Just being on the review team is often too much to take as I am also tasked with providing grief counseling to inconsolable parents.
Thank you for showing the beauty of the child. So many new parents try to place the baby in plush, thick and ruffled bedding with all too often fatal results. They see Hollywoods elite photograph their infants that way and I guess try to emulate. Maybe they think they look more comfortable, well cared for, or opulent? Whatever the case the marketers of bedding are certainly not going to stop showing the whole bedding ensemble.
Once a child is past the age of one, they are strong enough to fully reposition themselves and the bedding becomes less of an issue. Meanwhile, I will keep repinning your pin hoping to send you lots of business. Thanks again from the bottom of my heart for keeping focused on the one of a kind beautiful baby and not so much on the mass produced bedding.
Annette Wallace RN BSN
Child fatality review coordinator