Let me just start off by being totally honest with you, I have a love/hate relationship with monthly milestone pictures. You're already juggling wonky hormones, keeping another human alive, focusing on your own recovery and then add a monthly reminder of how fast time is going by each time your baby gets a month older...makes me emotional just thinking about it. Then, baby starts figuring out moving and things get even trickier.


I love them because I will be so thankful to have these to look back on some day. To reminisce on during future birthdays, to pass down to my kids and for them to use to maybe even compare baby pictures with their kids (gasp - my grandchildren...okay, I digress) someday. It's great to take random pictures of the kiddos as we go through regular life, but with their little features changing SO quickly, it really is nice to have a thought-out plan to regularly document your little one each month.



First thing's first - get that light right

Placing babe near a window is ideal. Think about what time of day you'll generally be able to take these 12 photos and check out which room looks best for light around then. For our first, I had a little more flexibility and took them in her bedroom. By the time we had our second, I knew I'd probably be taking his during Eve's nap time and they would share a room, so I chose our room with a big south facing window (which gets nice light all day).



Time it for a happy baby

Sometimes you just need to squeeze it in when you need to squeeze it in, but I've had the best success after Clay was well rested and fed. After a mountain of sleep/feeding struggles with our first, I read the book Baby Wise before having Clay and discovered the beauty of routine but feeding him after he woke up rather than just before sleep, helped immensely. All that to say, the smoothest sessions I've done with him (and longest I've gotten him to stay still) are right after he's woken up, just finished his bottle and outside of his spit-up window. A good recipe for a happy baby!



Decide what you'd like to be constant

When you have a constant, it can highlight the changes in your baby's size/features. I've done a simple white onesie with both Eve & Clay since I knew I'd have one in every size (even if you just have a 0-6mo. and a 6-12mo. you're covered). With Eve, we did progressive chair pictures every now and then sprinkled in with her regular monthly pictures, which were in her crib. Clay's were on a simple white blanket, which I laid over our dog's bed (it was comfy 😂) with wooden dice from the sweetest couple at The Reclaimed Nation.

Some other ideas are:



Have a decoy/distraction handy

If you have something in the picture showing the month number like a sticker or dice in our case, chances are baby will try to grab it. If you can have someone over your shoulder that can help get baby's attention and looking in the direction of the camera, that's ideal. If you need to give baby a decoy to keep their hands busy, try to find something neutral colored that won't be too distracting in the photo. You'll want to keep this with your other supplies you're using for these photos so that you use the same object each month.


And that's it! Hopefully this helps and if you have any tips that have made these easier for you, let me know in the comments below.