I am not a professional photographer. I’m just a mom who loves photographing her daughter. I wanted to share some photos from my daughter’s second year of life. You can find my first post: Easy At Home DIY Baby Photo Ideas & Tips HERE. All of these ideas are ones you can easily re-create yourself. Feel free to take the ideas and put your own twist on them.

I want to share some of my mommy photography for toddlers tips:
~ Make sure your little one is in a good mood when you try to take their photos. Make sure they have a clean diaper on (or have recently went potty if they are already trained) and are not hungry. If your child is treat motivated you can also try offering a small treat if they cooperate with your photo. Make sure to praise when your little one is cooperating!

~ Make sure you are not feeling rushed. Sometimes you may need to try at a different time of day or another day. Be patient.

~ I did less photo “set up” for my toddler than I did when she was a baby. In general, her expressions are something I try to focus more on, and less on the props. I like to use blankets (above) and shower curtains (below) for easy, at home backdrops.

~ Taking photos should be fun! For you and for your little one. Feel free to be silly. I sing, make funny noises and faces, hold toys, make faces, anything I can think of to make my little one smile. One thing that is really working right now is taking a little animal and putting it on my head then saying “look what’s on mommy’s head!” It makes her look at me (and usually smile). She thinks it is so silly if I have a pig, cow, puppy, etc. on my head!

~ Helpers can be good when you are taking pictures of your toddler. As you know, toddlers are so… BUSY! It seems they are almost constantly in motion! I’ve found it helps to have my toddler do something in the pictures, or hold something for me. It also works to have my husband help by doing silly things right behind me when I’m holding the camera, like make faces, hold my hair in funny shapes, etc. I always keep in mind that nobody sees what crazy things you are doing to get the pictures, they just see the cute pictures you take, so it’s worth it!

~ Pay attention to what is in the background. Try to have plain backgrounds if possible. Busy/cluttered backgrounds take attention away from the subject of your photos – your little one! You can see in the picture below, it probably would have been better with a plain blanket in the background instead of the patchwork quilt. Live and learn for next time!

~ My final tip is cropping & editing are your friend! Most pictures have at least a little something about them that can be improved. Take some time and edit your photos. Improve the lighting, crop and even check out what they look like in sepia tone or black and white. The photo below is the same photo, just cropped, lightened and turned to black and white. The second photo almost looks professional, and it only took a minute or so to do!

What do you think? Do you think you could reproduce some of these with your little one(s)? Do you have any questions for me?

I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did putting it together! Feel free to pin this post to Pinterest so you’ll have the ideas for future!

Asha

Hi, my name is Asha. I am 34-years-old and am a nurse by profession. Right now I am battling Breast Cancer. My husband and I have been married for 8 years and together we have a sweet seven-year-old daughter, a fun four-year-old son, and a lovable bunny named Caramel. I enjoy spending time with family, taking photographs, scrapbooking, hunting, fishing, cooking and gardening.

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