In practice
The date is not the hard part — the booking is. By day three, the following week is already gone. So the slot is held while you are still pregnant, as a flexible two-week window around your due date, and the exact morning is fixed by text from the maternity ward, usually within 48 hours of the birth. French maternity stays are short enough that you will normally be home well before day five, which is precisely why the window works.
If you miss it, nothing is lost. Between day 16 and day 25 a baby is more awake and unfolds; the session takes half an hour longer and produces livelier frames that many parents prefer. Three months brings the first real smiles, six months brings sitting up and belly laughs. Those are three different sessions, not one success and two failures.
Timing within the day matters too. We arrive around ten in the morning, when daylight comes through the windows without hitting hard. Between November and February we shift to somewhere between eleven and two.
For families posted here on contract, one practical note: the gallery is a link you forward to grandparents anywhere, and they download at full resolution without an account, an app or a French address.
Key points
- Best window: day 5 to day 15 of life.
- Reserve in the third trimester on a two-week window; confirm from the ward.
- From €160, at home, 1 hour 30 to 2 hours, morning light.
Common questions
How should we get the flat ready before you arrive?+
Warm the room to around 24 °C — a bare newborn sleeps badly below that — and clear a couple of square metres beside your largest window. Feed the baby as we arrive rather than an hour before. We bring wraps, a beanbag and blankets, so nothing needs buying. Unwashed dishes never show up in a photograph.
Can the older children and the grandparents be there?+
Yes, and we photograph them first, in the opening twenty to thirty minutes, while a toddler still has patience. After that the older ones can go out with a parent and the baby gets the quiet part of the session. Sara S. works alone in the room, at whatever pace the feeds dictate.
Family, maternity and newborn coverage around Toulouse is described on our family page.