my ultimate favorite trick for sibling + newborn photos: STICKERS

Yep, stickers.

As an Anchorage, Alaska newborn photographer with 1300+ sessions under my belt, and I’ve found that kids will do just about anything for stickers. And getting to put stickers on stuff? It’s like unlocking the secret to their little hearts. I have a roll of super teeny tiny gold stars with barely any stickiness to them (I’ll tell you in a sec why that’s important) and when I tear off a whole section for big brother or sister, those stars are reflected in their eyes. 

We all hope that our older children will be head-over-heels in love with their new sibling, but that’s not always the case. Or perhaps they like them just fine, but are really shy and hesitant, especially when in front of a camera. But stickers provide the ultimate distraction. 

For older children (3+) they’re able to manage the stickers by themselves, and for toddlers I have the closest parent hand them stickers one-by-one. The stickers have low stickiness so they’re easy to remove and don’t leave adhesive behind on anything or anyone. And because they’re small, they’re easy to hide and later remove during editing. 

Then we play games with the stickers!
”Can you put a star on baby’s belly and your belly? Can you touch your belly’s star and baby’s belly’s star?”
”Let’s put stars all around baby in a big circle”
”Hide a star in baby’s basket while I close my eyes and we’ll see if I can find it.”
”Can you put a star on your hand and make it touch it touch the star on baby’s belly?”

Each of those “games” is designed to encourage engagement by having the sibling interact with baby. From the camera’s POV, big sister is rubbing baby’s tummy and gazing with love (when it’s really stickers the whole time).

Babies can be a little scary, so they might not feel comfortable being close to baby. Or perhaps they don’t like strangers and a photographer- even one they’ve met before- can be intimidating on top of all the other recent changes. But stickers give the littles something to do and focus on besides their hesitation or shyness. It breaks down barriers and creates a fun memory with baby and beautiful pictures as the result.