Newborn Smiles: A Study in Adorableness

Every new parent who has held a newborn baby sleeping in your arms has marveled at the quick smles that pass over their face. Gas or unregulated nervous system or whatever the cause, a newborn smile is a wondrous thing. I always say that evolution really could have done a better job with the whole feeding thing (here, tiny piranha mouth, fasten yourself to this enormous, exquisitely sensitive appendage and extract your survival…), but the fact that real, interactive baby smiles start around 2 months or so is brilliant (ohmigosh, you love me back!).

Unpredictable and certainly not intentional, the newborn smile is a magical instant in any session. I have learned how to watch for the most likely time they will occur (shortly before falling into deep sleep), but it is still no guarantee that any baby will smile in any session. Which is why I am so delighted when they do.

These aren’t always the most perfect images (in a technical sense of my perfectionism), but I always include them in a gallery because of their magic and capacity to provoke a smile in us in return.