Working with premies can be a challenge at times. It can throw off all the best plans, and timing for my sessions even.
This sweet little girl decided to come into the world early and in a hurry. Some babies just can’t wait to meet their families, you know?
Some babies will spend many weeks in the hospital, and some come home after just a short stay to check their basic abilities. Thankfully, other than some healing she needed to do from birth, Aurora was tiny but mighty.
Typically, when it comes time to scheduling a newborn session for your premie. I will stick to their due date. If they are out of the NICU, and have a clean bill of health we can schedule the session for as soon as you are home. Often, babies will be in the NICU until closer to their due date. In that case, I typically treat them as a newborn once they get home, and schedule them within 3 weeks of leaving the hospital. Most premies, even though they’re older, are still just like a newborn. They spent those weeks in the hospital growing and developing their bodies to live outside of Mom. So they’re still super sleepy.
While most newborn sessions are full term babies, I have been working with premies more and more lately.
Aurora was a pretty decent sleeper, but she brought some spice to the studio. She didn’t want to sleep as much anymore, a strong fear of missing out. So we spent a lot of time comforting and shushing to keep her asleep. Even when she was awake though, she kept at least one eye, if not both eyes, open. It was the funniest thing. I tried to ask her politely to close both eyes, but she just stared at me through one eye.
