My Toddler Won’t Sit Still for Pictures. Good.

“My toddler won’t sit still for pictures.”

If that’s your biggest worry about booking a portrait session, I have good news.

Your toddler doesn’t need to sit still for pictures.

If you have a two- or three-year-old who would rather explore the room, inspect my equipment, carry something around, tell me about dinosaurs, climb onto a chair, climb back off the chair, or suddenly decide that lying on the floor is an excellent life choice, you do not need to apologize to me. Your toddler is being a toddler. And I happen to like toddlers.

Your Toddler’s Job Is Not to Cooperate With Me

One of the biggest worries I hear from parents before a child photography session is some version of this:

What if my child won’t cooperate?

Here’s the good news.

Your toddler’s job isn’t to cooperate with my photography. My job is to make photography work with your toddler.

I don’t expect a two-year-old to walk into an unfamiliar place, stand exactly where I put them, look directly at a camera and smile pleasantly on command. Honestly, that would be a little weird. Toddlers are supposed to move. They’re supposed to investigate. They’re supposed to have opinions. They’re supposed to be interested in everything except the thing the adults have decided they’re supposed to be interested in. That’s part of what makes this age so wonderful to photograph.

Your Toddler Doesn’t Need to Sit Still for Pictures

There are certainly moments when I may invite a child to sit somewhere. But “sit right here, look at me and smile” is not the foundation of a Brown Bunny child session. Instead, I give children something to do. We might play with a toy. Read a book. Tuck a baby doll into bed. Look for something I’ve hidden. Talk about a favorite animal. Make something up. Explore a prop. Tell a ridiculous story. Sometimes I’ll simply follow them for a while.

I’m watching for the moment when curiosity takes over and they forget quite so much about the lady with the camera.

Because that’s usually when the interesting pictures begin.

Movement Isn’t the Problem

Parents sometimes see a moving toddler and think the session is falling apart. I see possibilities.

The little hand clutching a favorite stuffed animal. The serious expression while they investigate something new. The curls bouncing when they run. The mischievous look right before they do something they suspect they probably shouldn’t. The way they squat down to examine something on the floor. The belly laugh that happens when we stop trying to manufacture one.

Those aren’t interruptions to the portrait session. Those are the portrait session.

What If My Toddler Won’t Smile?

That’s okay, too.

I love a wonderful laugh. I love a mischievous grin. But I also love thoughtful faces, suspicious faces, determined faces and the wonderfully solemn expressions little children sometimes give me. Your child does not owe my camera a smile.

I would much rather make a beautiful portrait of the child who actually came through the door than spend the session trying to coax them into performing a version of “happy” for me. And very often, once everyone stops worrying about getting the smile, the real ones show up anyway.

The Most Helpful Thing Parents Can Do

This may be the hardest part: You don’t have to fix it.

If your toddler wanders away from where we thought they would stand, you don’t need to put them back. If they don’t answer me, you don’t need to answer for them. If they aren’t smiling, you don’t need to stand behind me yelling, “CHEESE!” And if they need a few minutes before they’re willing to interact with me, that’s fine.

You know your child better than anyone, and I’ll absolutely need your help sometimes. But you don’t need to spend the session managing their behavior for my sake. Let me build the relationship. Let them decide I’m interesting. And let me worry about the photographs.

What About a Meltdown?

They’re toddlers. Sometimes there will be tears.

A photography session doesn’t magically exempt anyone from being hungry, tired, overwhelmed, shy, frustrated or deeply offended because someone handed them the wrong cracker. We can stop. We can have a snack. We can sit with Mom for a while. We can change what we’re doing. We can abandon an idea completely if it isn’t working. There is no prize for powering through a miserable child just because something was on my plan for the session.

The plan serves the child. The child does not serve the plan.

“But I Want a Beautiful Portrait for My Wall.”

So do I. Play-led does not mean I’m simply documenting chaos and hoping something works. I’m still thinking about light, composition, color, expression, clothing, background and all of the tiny details that turn a photograph into a finished portrait. The difference is that I don’t need your toddler to understand any of that. That’s my job. Their job is to be two.

This Is Who They Are Right Now

Someday, your toddler probably will sit still for a photograph. They’ll understand instructions. They’ll know exactly what “look at the camera” means. They may even give you the same practiced smile every time someone points a phone at them. There will be plenty of time for that. Right now, they’re busy. They’re curious. They’re unpredictable. They’re funny. They have very strong opinions about very small things. And they are changing unbelievably fast. I don’t want to photograph your toddler in spite of all of that. I want to photograph them because of it.

If you’ve been putting off children’s portraits because your toddler won’t sit still for pictures, you can stop worrying about it. They don’t need to.