What Happens If My Baby Won't Sleep During the Newborn

This is the question I'm asked most often.

More than what to wear. More than what to bring. More than how long it takes.

What if my baby won't sleep?

And I always want to answer it honestly — because the worry behind it is real, and you deserve better than a reassuring non-answer.

First, the truth about sleeping babies

Newborn sessions work best — the classic posed portraits, the curled hands, the wrapped and peaceful images — when babies are deeply asleep.

That's not a secret.

And yes, some babies arrive already settled, feed beautifully, and drift off within twenty minutes.

But many don't.

Some babies are unsettled that morning for no reason anyone can find. Some are going through a growth spurt. Some have wind. Some simply decide that today is not a sleeping day.

After eighteen years and more than a thousand newborn sessions across London and Bromley, I have seen every version of this.

And I have never once left a family without photographs.

What actually happens

We slow down.

That's all.

If your baby needs feeding — we stop, and you feed them. If they need winding — we wait. If they need skin-to-skin with you for twenty minutes before they'll settle — that's exactly what we do.

I'm not watching the clock. I'm not sighing quietly in the corner. I'm not making you feel like your baby is somehow failing the session.

I've been doing this long enough to know that babies set the tempo. My job is to follow it.

The sessions I remember most

Some of the most beautiful photographs I've ever taken have come from sessions where the baby barely slept at all.

An awake newborn has something a sleeping one doesn't.

They look up. They find your face. They make the tiny expressions that last about three days before they change completely.

Those images — a wide-eyed baby looking directly into the camera, or turning toward their mother's voice — are the ones parents often come back to most.

Not because they're what anyone planned. But because they're completely, unmistakably real.

What you can do

A few things genuinely help — though none of them are guaranteed, and none of them are your fault if they don't work.

Feed your baby about thirty minutes before I arrive, if the timing allows. Keep the room a little warmer than usual. Try not to let the morning feel rushed — babies absorb the energy around them more than we realise.

And if none of that works?

We work with what we have. We always do.

One last thing

Please don't spend the night before your session lying awake worrying about whether your baby will cooperate.

You have a newborn. You are already doing something incredibly hard.

I will bring the calm. I will bring the patience. I will find the photographs — whatever the day looks like.

That's my job. And I love it.

Thinking about booking a newborn session in London or Bromley? You're welcome to get in touch — I'm always happy to answer questions, whatever stage you're at.