6 Ways to Celebrate Your Rainbow Baby in photos

A rainbow baby is a baby that was born after any kind of loss of another baby. The term symbolizes the hope and joy after such a devastating time. Some people celebrate rainbow babies by talking about all of their babies, including their losses while others choose to do something of impact like donating to a charity of their choice.

A lot of people like to celebrate their rainbow baby during their pregnancy and newborn photo sessions. There are many ways we can celebrate rainbow baby and honor your losses.

Rainbow Newborn Photos

When you Google Rainbow Baby Photography, you will see tons of images of newborn portraits with rainbow arches with all the colors. These images are stunning and take the idea of a rainbow baby literally, often with your new baby at one end of the rainbow.

Rainbow Backdrops

From digital backdrops where I (or another professional newborn photographer) use photoshop to add your baby into the backdrop, to placing your baby on a planned backdrop with rainbow elements. This can be a beautiful and sweet way of creating rainbows in your gallery.

Rainbow Colored Elements

Another way to go would be to include the colors of the rainbow in a different way. I offer elements like a multicolored bonnet, headband or wrap. As well as items like multiple hearts or even more personalized elements like hot wheels cars.

Using items like these shows that your baby is a rainbow baby without the entire image being about the rainbow. Your baby can still be the focal point of the image this way.

The Rainbow Shape

There are so many ways to include a rainbow now in your newborn portrait session. Recently, I purchased a bamboo style bed where the headboard is the shape of a rainbow. This would allow us to have all neutrals as many of my clients request or be able to accent the images in whatever color or rainbow additions we would like to include.

Photos and Ultrasound Photos

Some clients want to bring their babies into the session in a more obvious way. For this, incorporating an actual photo or ultrasound of your lost baby is a perfect way to bring them into this session. We can have your rainbow baby hold it or place it somewhere else in the photo.

Items to Represent Your Other Children

One of my personal favorite ways of representing a rainbow baby is by bringing in a completely different item to symbolize your losses. I worked with one family who experienced eight losses before having their rainbow baby. For this, I created a custom headband with eight flowers, one to represent each of their lost babies. Another family, we brought little teddies, one to represent each of their children.

The best part about having a photo like this, is that no one has to know that it is to represent your rainbow baby at all but still honors your lost babies. In many cases, an image like this works more cohesively in your home for wall art and people don’t ask you about the rainbows whenever they see it.

End Notes

How ever you choose to celebrate your rainbow baby should be personal to you and your family. I am always happy to find new ideas to honor your babies and your family.

Tell us about your story in the comments or send me a message about it anytime. My inbox is always open for any family who needs someone to talk to.

And of course, contact me to inquire about your own newborn photo session.