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Siblings and Newborns – Specialist Child and Baby Photographer

Including siblings – hard work but worth it!


If the newborn session you’ve booked isn’t your first, you may be considering whether to bring your older littlies along and get some sibling shots in Grimsby. In an ideal world your older one will sit beautifully and hold your new baby and smile for the camera, right? Hehehe yeah…ok.

In reality we may get more images like this…… and then have to do head swapping in Photoshop and using three images together to create the final one.

See, until they’re about 4-5 years old they don’t know what we are asking of them, so can either get silly, or get upset. Or blatantly refuse to do anything at all! Toddlers are almost impossible to pose. Its often trickery thats required for that magic shot.

This is why I try to get them done fairly quickly and will call time if the siblings are getting fed up. That being said, I LOVE to include siblings in my newborn sessions, after all, they are part of the family too and capturing that bond early on is amazing. Especially good to look back on adorable images when they are driving you mad, fighting tooth and nail over the last jaffa cake or the TV remote. When siblings are brought along, we arrange to have them present just at the beginning of the session, with Dad, grandparent or a friend popping them away, or back to school, after their photographs have been done.

This is for several reasons, these being that it is VERY warm in the studio and VERY boring, they can get fed up and disturb the new baby session, which is calm and relaxed. If you are stressed because your toddler is driving you mad, it can ruin the entire session. Also, there is limited room what with equipment and props etc.

Whether you bring your older child/children along is entirely up to you, though before you decide, please consider that they may not play ball. Some children just aren’t happy with a virtual stranger asking them to sit here or there, or even to lay down like the gorgeous boys in the above image. We would never force a child to participate, but will always try to make them feel comfortable and relaxed. If you do decide to bring them along, here are some hints and tips to help things go smoothly:

  1. If they are old enough to understand, explain where you are taking them and what they will be doing , mention Maddy to them (or your photographers) name so they don’t feel that they are a stranger.
  2. Take photographs of them yourself, encouraging them to “smile for the camera” and get them used to having their picture taken.
  3. Try to ensure they aren’t hungry, sleepy or under the weather for the session. For poorly siblings we would rather arrange to have them pop back when they are better as they are not likely to play ball.
  4. Use bribery! bring their favourite sweets/treat along as this just may help get the perfect shot.
  5. You could also bring a favourite toy to help keep their attention.
  6. Dress them in plain and neutral clothing, avoid stripes/big bold patterns, no logos and no character clothing (paw patrol etc)

And remember it’s not the end of the world if siblings don’t want to co-operate, but we do have a few tricks up our sleeve too! We can even take a shot of your toddler alone next to a container with her favourite treats in it, then ad your new baby in after…..like this!


The fabulous Jay Saunders who does awesome newborn baby photography in Essex agrees that sibling shots in a newborn session are tough, but well worth it. Pop to her fab website read what she has been blogging about this week.

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