Do your babies have favorite goodnight songs? If you’ve known me for half a second you’ve probably heard me complain about how my daughter was the worst sleeper in the history of the universe. I read every book and blog and internet chat I could to figure out what I could do to get her to sleep better. So, one of the books suggested always singing the same song when putting the babies down to help trigger sleep. When I’m doing a newborn shoot, I always sing the “La La Lu” song from Lady and the Tramp. I had a sweet momma call me the other day to ask what song I had been singing, because it worked like a charm. For my son, it’s Jewel’s version of “Brahms Lullaby.” And, brother, does it work. We have the CD in the car, and he is out like a light if I play it, and he requests it as his last song every night before bed. For my darling-non-sleeping daughter, nothing has ever really worked. I finally had to understand that 1. she doesn’t need as much sleep as most people 2. one day she’ll be out of my house, and I’ll get to experience the sheer joy of calling her every weekend night at 2-hour intervals. Ahahahaha. <—That’s sleep deprivation-induced evil laughter.

Anyway, there is a point to all of this. Her most requested goodnight song for the past year or so is “Sweet Baby James.” Here’s a link to my all-time favorite version. So back to this session, this darling boy’s name is James, so I’ve had that song in my head pretty much since I’ve known his name and knew I was doing his newborn session. My kids think it is so adorable that I got to sing it to a real-life sweet baby James. It’s a good thing he’s not my kid, though. If he were my baby, he’d probably get so sick of hearing that song.

I think this is my favorite, because I can see both of his parents in this expression. When I was shooting, I didn’t like his fingers in his face, so I moved them under his cheek. But when I went through all of them, I sort of loved his sweet fingers curled around his face.Sweet family, I am beyond honored that you asked me to take your sweet boy’s pictures. He is so precious. Congratulations!

Love, Andrea and my cutie pie assistant David :)