We thought family photos were simple until we added a wild toddler and tried to get her to smile! It seems like toddlers have a sixth sense about family photos. Like they know they are coming and they are going to do everything possible to make it a miserable experience. If this is not the case for you, lucky you!
For me, on the day of our family pictures, my 2-year-old refused to nap and then fell asleep on the drive to family pictures, which meant I had to wake her up and try and get her to smile. I pulled out a few tricks I learned from photographer friends and THEY ACTUALLY WORKED! So, here are four tricks for getting your toddler to smile.
#1 Bring a family member or friend your toddler loves
This was absolutely key! If you don’t bring someone else to family photos, chances are you will be looking at your child in every photo either trying to get them to look happy or making sure they are happy. It is stressful. We invited my toddler’s grandpa to come and he had a great time! She loves him, so he was able to make funny faces and sing her favorite songs and get her to smile for us.
This is also super helpful for photographers so the pressure to get your child to smile is not on them. Instead, they get to focus on capturing the whole family. I also felt like it gave the photographer more of an opportunity to set up the shot and make sure everyone in the photo looked great.
#2 Bring bribes
Yep, I said it. Bring ALL the bribes! We brought favorite toys, favorite snacks and special treats she rarely gets to have. As you can see in some of the photos, we had to pull out fruit snacks very early on to even get her to hold still for 5 seconds. After that, we moved onto a green sucker that completely dyed her mouth and tongue green. ha.
I say the more things you can bring the better. We just gave the bag of bribes to Grandpa and let him go through it. He used every single thing in there by the end of our session, so I really don’t think you can overprepare.
#3 Tell your toddler not to smile
Isn’t this the oldest trick in the book? We thought there was no way it was going to work but guess what? It worked every single time! There is just something they love about not doing what they are told 
#4 Don’t take it too seriously
Have fun with your child! Play with them! These photos will end up looking natural because they are natural. Kids love to play and when you give them the opportunity to have fun, most of the time they don’t mind being photographed. We also went into family photos knowing that we may only get a handful of good photos. That’s all you really need anyway! We want to remember this time in our life as it actually is, not how a perfectly stylized photograph of our family is.
One other note because I’ve been getting questions about the weather. If you can try to pick a day with nice weather, that is, of course, ideal, but if not, come prepared for the conditions. It was about 95 degrees while we were getting our photos taken, so we made sure to dress our toddler appropriately and have plenty of water and drinks on hand.
I hope these tips helped you and would love to hear any others you have. Good luck with getting your toddler to smile for family photos! Let me know if these four tips helped. Our photos were taken by Tori Hillyard Photography, she is located in Salt Lake City. You can find her website here.
Don’t forget to take a look at our other photography posts:
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