Yesterday I walked through how to take 3 newborn portraits at the hospital on your phone [YOU CAN READ THAT HERE!] and today I am going to walk you through how to take 5 newborn portraits at home in just one simple location until you can see your newborn photographer for your newborn session! 🙂

My favorite spot to take newborn portraits is always in the master bedroom of my clients home! Usually, it is the room with the most available light! (I know that is not always the case! If another bedroom or room in your home offers better light for the following portraits, then you should definitely use there instead!)

Make sure the bed is nicely put together, curtains and blinds are nice and open and any overhead lights or lamps are turned off! Try to push any wrinkles away from your newborn so the comforter, blanket or bed sheet is as smooth as possible!

For these five simple newborn poses, I suggest getting a newborn stretch wrap swaddle! It looks very similar to cheesecloth! (I’ve used cheesecloth before, if you can’t find any online that can ship to you in time, from big box stores!) I would take a little look into Etsy for one of these! There are many colors to choose from! If you don’t have a cheesecloth or stretch wrap – anything you can stretch around your newborn to swaddle them will work perfectly fine!!

To learn how to wrap your newborn in this stretch wrap, here is a great youtube tutorial that will walk you right through it! Very simple and any mama can do it! 🙂 [YOU CAN FIND THE VIDEO HERE!]

Doing these portraits when your little one is snoozing is best – you’ll be able to mold them into their positions a lot easier! So after a feeding is a great time!

Laying your newborn on your bed horizontal from you, on their back with their head towards the window is where you will want to start!

Portrait One: A horizontal wide portrait of your newborn and the bed/room!

This is a great start to your little photo shoot with your little one! Getting an entire view of them and how tiny they are!

Portrait Two: A vertical full length portrait of your newborn!

Portrait two is very similar to portrait one except you will want to move in a little closer (remember to not zoom in on your phone camera!) to your little one and get a portrait of their entire body in the frame just like the example picture!

Portrait Three: An up above portrait of your newborn!

Now you will want to take a portrait from above your newborn all swaddled up! I would personally make their whole body fill the entire frame of my camera!

Portrait Four: A close up of their sweet little face!

While still taking a picture from above, I would come in a little closer and make sure to focus my camera right on their sweet face! If you are personally focusing the camera’s focus area, be sure to click on their eyes to have those in focus first! Then you could move around and focus on each of your newborn’s other features like, nose, ears, lips and hair! 🙂

Portrait Five: Unwrap your newborn from the swaddle and gently cover them with the cheesecloth while laying on their side!

This portrait is going to be the “hardest” of them all! 😉 After you get all your portraits you want to take of your newborn while they are all swaddled up, I would take to swaddle off of my newborn gently and turn them to lay on their side facing towards you!

I would have the blanket organically laid across your newborn’s body and get a nice horizontal portrait of them from afar, full body and from the chest up!

This would also be a prime time to get some detail portraits of their teeny fingers and toes!!

I hope these tips you have read the past few days are helpful to you mama’s! I know how important professional pictures are to me of my little guy and I know it is so important to many of you too! So when we can hopefully sooner rather than later see one another again, here are some portrait tips to take of your precious bundle in their first few days from home! Also, because I just want to spread some more joy around – I’m going to offer complimentary editing to any mama’s who tag me in their portraits (@sweetmagnoliaphoto) of any of the poses above or send them directly to me and I will edit them for you as a gift!* HUGS!

*This complimentary service will only be available to mama’s who have given birth from April 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020!