Newborn photos with 11-day-old Darcie

Parents are often worried how their eldest will feel about a new baby joining the family. To ease two-year-old Eilidh’s transition to big sister, mum Lorette and dad Darren talked about the baby lots during the pregnancy.

When Darcie was born, they presented Eilidh with a special ‘big sister’ soft toy and a gold medal for being the ‘best big sister’. They needn’t have worried.

These first 11 days have been tough at times (Darcie’s not too keen on sleeping for long!) but full of magical moments spent watching their two daughters interact. When Darcie cries, Eilidh will go over and talk to her, trying to soothe her little sister.

During Darcie’s Newborn Photoshoot with me, Eilidh was more than happy to kiss, cuddle and hold on to her sister, and her proud smiles hint to just how much she’s enjoying her new role.

Eilidh is incredibly articulate, using whole phrases like ‘This is a bit hard, isn’t it, mummy?’ in the right context despite her young age.

She’s very shy but loves music – although she won’t sing around others, Lorette and Darren tell me they can often hear her rendering the lyrics to Sing a Song of Sixpence around the house.

Eilidh is also very affectionate, turning to tell her parents how much she loves them at random intervals during our session together. 

She enjoys building towers made out of blocks and knocking those towers back down again! Most of all, though, she loves immersing herself in her imagination, telling her parents what she’s up to, whether that’s ‘going to the shops’ or ‘looking after the baby’.

Darcie, meanwhile, is all noises and expressions. Her parents tell me she’s got a different sound for every time of day, and is the queen of the side-eye stare!

She arrived dramatically, after Lorette’s occasional contractions quickly turned into three times within ten minutes, all in the middle of the night.

Darcie was overdue, and Lorette had been feeling uncomfortable for a while. On this particular evening, Lorette felt especially restless; in hindsight it seems as though her body knew the baby was ready to make an exit.

The couple raced to hospital, with Darren nervous that the baby would arrive before they made it there. Thankfully, due to the time of day, the roads were completely clear and free of traffic, which meant they just made it inside the doors before Darcie was born.

After such a dramatic entrance, it’s now time to settle into life as a family of four.

Happily, Eilidh is on hand to help mum and dad and be as involved as possible with Darcie: helping to fetch and pass nappies, wipes and nappy sacks, for example, and to stroke Darcie’s perfectly chubby cheeks.

It takes quite a lot of patience to slow everything down so that a 2.5-year-old can participate.

But Lorette and Darren tell me it’s worth it in the end, for the resultant ease with which Eilidh has accepted and welcomed her new sister.

Indeed, if there was an Olympics for best big sister, I’m sure Eilidh would scoop gold. And she’s already got the medal to prove it 🙂

“Sarah provided us with not just the most beautiful pictures, but an experience we will never forget. Indeed our 2.5yr old still talks about Sarah, after spending only a couple of hours in her studio. My husband and daughter really don’t like having their photos taken but Sarah made it fun and tried to capture us as our natural selves – we much prefer the purity and honesty of pictures whereby we really are having fun. Sarah made this happen. Without a doubt we would recommend Sarah and appreciated all the effort she went to to make us feel special, happy and bring our shy little girl out of her shell so we can enjoy pictures of her and her baby sister forevermore.”

Lorette and Darren, newborn photography clients from Bicester, Oxfordshire

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If you’re interested in newborn portraits or family photography in and around Bicester, Oxfordshire, please get in contact.

Sarah Plater LMPA is an award-winning qualified, certified professional newborn and family portrait photographer based in Bicester, Oxfordshire. She is the Master Photographers Association Newborn Photographer of the Year 2019 for the Central Region (covering Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire).