Great baby photography doesn’t have to come from professional baby photographers.  With a little planning, parents can create amazing baby photographs that visually show how fast your baby grows, especially in the first year.  And we all know it happens way too fast!

How To Track Your Baby’s Growth in Pictures

Our favorite Growth Gram comes from Lil’Macy’s Lil’Grams Online Baby Book.  Her parents picked a single point of reference, mom’s favorite giraffe, and used it every month for her “mini baby-birthday” pictures. Using a white large piece of construction paper and a blue marker, they noted the “mini baby-birthday” Macy was celebrating.

Here is a collage of what it could look like after 12 months. It is one of our favorite parent ideas.

Tips for Creating Great Baby Photography – Baby Growth Grams!

1. Use your favorite stuffed animal.  Though the effect of an over-sized animal is amazing, you don’t have to go that big.  We recommend that you use a stuffed animal that is at least the size of your baby when he or she was born.  We’ve seen other parents take similar pictures with an animal that is around 21″ and it is really cute to see the baby get significantly bigger than the animal over the first 6 months!  A smaller stuffed animal will also be easier to fit into the picture.  We have also seen other parents take the animal to the hospital, and take baby’s first pictures alongside it.  Too cute!!  Warning: keep this stuffed animal in a safe place.  Baby will be tempted to play with it and you don’t want food stains (or worse!) in your pictures as time passes.
2. Use white paper, not colored paper .  Use a  white large piece of WHITE construction paper and a thick point marker.   You might be tempted to use pink or blue paper, but we highly recommend sticking to white.  You don’t want additional colors competing with what your baby is wearing.  Also, make sure you use the same color marker each month.  We recommend that you buy 2 or 3 of them so that you don’t loose one throughout the years.  TIP: Buy at least 20 of them in case you mess up when  you are writing on it!
3. Consistent Backdrop - use the same backdrop for every picture.  The most important thing avoid is a patterned backdrop.  That will compete with your baby and the stuffed animal.  If your couch does have a pattern, consider putting everyone on a simple, cozy blanket that is light in color.  In this case, you might use a light blue or light pink background, but white is always best.
4. Lighting – you have heard this before – FLASH IS YUCKY!  A FLASH can be your worst enemy, particularly when you are using a light background.  The shadows it creates are annoying and they are very difficult to edit, especially with most free picture editing software.  You will always get the best baby pictures in bright daylight when you don’t need a flash.  We know that isn’t always realistic, so if you are going to use a flash, take the same picture from a few angles  to see which angle minimizes shadows.

Last but not least, your baby doesn’t have to be smiling!  All of your baby’s expressions make great pictures.  So don’t be afraid to show them crying!  If you want people to think your baby is all smiles all the time, then be prepared to do this a few times to get that perfect shot!

If you have a similar project you want to share with our readers, please contact us (hello@lifegrams.com) and we’d love to have you as a guest blogger!  And of course if you are using Lil’Grams,  your family will automagically receive a Growth Gram every time you upload your new pictures!  We just love to make showing off these babies easy!