A 3 Week Old Newborn Photo Shoot At My London Studio

I’m delighted to share this baby girl’s newborn photo shoot with you today, which took place at my South West London studio when she was between 3 and 4 weeks old.

Typically I’ll photograph new babies when they’re aged between 5 and 14 days old, but on occasion it just doesn’t work out that way. Perhaps mum or baby needed a bit more time to recover after the birth. And sometimes families don’t contact me to book their shoot until after their baby has been born and the earliest date I can offer them is after the 14 day window.

Can You Take Newborn Photos At 3 Weeks?

In this case this baby girl was just over 3 weeks old when she came to the studio for her session. Knowing that the ideal time for newborn photographs is when a baby is aged between 5 and 14 days you might be wondering whether it’s really possible to have a newborn session after this.

In my experience it is possible to have a newborn session at around 3 weeks, but as every baby is different there are a couple of things that might not be exactly the same as a session for a baby who is under 2 weeks old.

Firstly, the session may take a little longer than with a younger baby. I say may because this is very variable. 

Typically, as they get older new babies spend longer periods of time awake between feeds and sleeps. This means that their session may take longer than a session for a younger baby. 

But, all babies are different – some babies aged under 2 weeks spend lots of time awake at their session, and some babies aged over 2 weeks sleep the whole way through!

Related Article: Why do babies need to be asleep for posed newborn photography?

Secondly, in the early weeks after a baby is born they tend to enjoy tucking their legs in, curling up and being in foetal-like positions. As they get older they stretch out. 

After the two week window some babies may prefer stretched out positions, which means that they may not be comfortable in all of the newborn poses. Again, this varies between babies and if a baby isn’t comfortable in a particular position I’ll move on and take some different photographs instead.

A Baby Led Approach To Newborn Photography

During each newborn session I spend the majority of the time photographing the new baby, and take a baby-led approach. 

So if a baby does spend a lot of time awake, needs a feed or nappy change, we’ll pause and take a break.

I build plenty of time into the session to allow for these breaks, so there’s no rush. 

At the end of the session we’ll take parent and baby photographs, family photographs and sibling photographs if you have older children.

Next Steps

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of my favourites from this baby girl’s newborn photo shoot when she was 3 weeks old.

If I have space in my diary I’m very happy to photograph newborns up to 3 weeks or so at my South West London studio.

For older babies, I also offer an Older Newborn Photo Shoot for babies aged up to 8 weeks.

If you’d like to find out more about having your baby photographed or are ready to book your session please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

Related Articles

You may also find these articles helpful:

What’s the best age for baby photos?

My baby is more than two weeks old. Is it too late for a newborn photo shoot?

A newborn photo shoot with an 8 week old baby