You've probably already heard it.
Someone will say it when you're pregnant.
The doctors, nurses & midwives will probably mention it when your baby arrives.
Family will say it when your toddler starts walking.
Friends will say it when they see your child after six months and suddenly exclaim: “They've grown so much!"
You'll smile.
You'll nod.

Of course they grow up fast. We all know that.
But I don't think you can really understand what those words mean until you've lived it.

Because when you're living those years, you're not standing outside them watching them disappear.
You're inside them.
You're feeding the baby.
Changing nappies.
Getting up in the night.
Trying to leave the house on time.
Finding the missing shoe.
Reading the same book for the hundredth time.
Cleaning yoghurt off the floor.
Wondering when they'll sleep through.

Then wondering when they'll start talking.
Then wondering if they'll ever stop.

You're not thinking: This moment is disappearing.
You're thinking: I really need five minutes to myself.

And that's completely normal.
It's also why “they grow up so fast” is perhaps the least useful warning anyone ever gives a new parent.

Because knowing something intellectually isn't the same as understanding it.

This is the strange thing about having children.

Everyone tells you you'll miss these years. But you don't yet know which parts you'll miss.

You expect to miss big moments like the first smile.
The first steps.
The first birthday.
The first Christmas.
The first day of school.

And you probably will.
But what about the things you don't even realise are happening?

The way they pronounce a particular word.
The toy they carry everywhere.
The song they insist on hearing every morning.
The way they climb into your bed at 5am.
The shape of their little hand around your finger.
The particular way they sit at the kitchen bench.
The ridiculous outfit they refuse to take off.
The sound of their voice from the other room.
The way they reach for you without thinking.

You don't know which of these things will become precious.

Because you haven't missed them yet.
They are your ordinary, everyday moments.

The obvious answer is the milestones. And yes - photograph them.
The first smile.
The first steps.
The first birthday.
Christmas morning.
The first day of daycare.
The first day of school.

But childhood isn't made up of milestones. It's made up of everything that happens between them.
So photograph the ordinary things too.

Photograph what they love.
The favourite toy.
The current obsession.
The book you have read 400 times.
The shoes they refuse to take off.

Photograph where they live.
Their bedroom.
The toys on the floor.
The height marks on the doorframe.
The garden.
The kitchen bench.
The home exactly as it is.

Photograph the people they love.
Siblings.
Grandparents.
Friends.
Pets.
And most importantly: you.

Photograph the way they are.
The serious face.
The mischief.
The concentration.
The chaos.
The quiet.
The things they do when nobody asks them to smile.

Because you're not just recording what your child looked like.
You're recording who they were.

Maybe.
And honestly, I hope you do take thousands.

Your phone is there for moments a professional photographer could never capture.
Take the blurry photograph.
Take the badly lit photograph.
Take the photograph where they're looking away.
Take the photograph nobody else would think was important.

Take the photograph.

But there is a difference between having photographs and having an archive.
Your camera roll is a stream. It fills up with photographs, screenshots, videos, shopping lists and things you meant to delete.

Important photographs disappear amongst everything else.

And there's another problem - You're probably missing from most of them.
You can have thousands of photographs of your child and almost no photographs of the two of you together.

One day, your child won't only want to know what they looked like.
They'll want to know: Who was there?

This is one of the biggest reasons to occasionally hand the camera to somebody else.

Don't wait until you feel ready.
Definitely don't wait until you've lost the baby weight - your body just did an amazing thing!
Don't wait until your hair is done.
Don't wait until the house is tidy.

Your child isn't going to look at a photograph twenty years from now and notice those things.
They're going to see you.
The arms that held them.
The face they knew.
The person who was there.
The relationship that help shape them into the adults they become.

You are part of your child's childhood too.
Please don't photograph yourself out of it.

Not every year.
Not every milestone.
And certainly not because someone on Instagram told you that you need another photoshoot.

Your family doesn't need to be photographed constantly.

What professional documentary family photography can give you is something different.
A documentary photographer can see what you're too close to notice.

The relationships.
The tiny habits.
The way your child looks at you.
The things they've started doing without you realising.
The changing dynamics between siblings.

And someone else can make sure you're actually in the story.
That's the value.

Not more photographs.
Different photographs.

There isn't a magic number.
But if your aim is to document how your child grows, consistency matters more than quantity.

A photograph at three months tells one story.
Another at eighteen months tells a completely different one.
Then three.
Then four.
Then five.

Suddenly you're not looking at five individual photos. You're looking at a childhood unfolding. And that's why I think the early years benefit from being photographed gradually.

Six months can make an extraordinary difference when a child is little.
A baby who couldn't sit is suddenly crawling.
A toddler who barely spoke is suddenly telling elaborate stories.
A three-year-old who needed help with everything is suddenly declaring: “I can do it myself.”

You don't need photographs every week - or even every month.
You need enough space between them to see the change.

Then they're being a child - and documentary family photography is a beautiful fit.
They don't need to perform for the camera.
They don't need to sit still.
They don't need to smile on command.

And you don't need to spend an hour saying:
“Look at the camera.”
“Smile.”
“Just one more.”

Some of the most meaningful photographs happen when nobody is trying to make a photograph happen.

A child absorbed in something they love.
A sibling relationship unfolding.
A cuddle.
A tantrum that becomes laughter.
A quiet moment.
A completely ordinary afternoon.

Documentary photography leaves room for children to be themselves.

Good.

Because one day, you might miss that version of home too.
The fingerprints on the glass.
The toys everywhere.
The drawings on the fridge.
The shoes by the door.
The ridiculous child-size chair that has been in the corner for years.
The bedroom they chose themselves.
The garden they played in.

We spend so much time trying to make our homes look perfect for photographs that we forget-
this is where their childhood is happening.

It doesn't need to look like a magazine.
It needs to look like your life.

This is where I think we often get it wrong.
We photograph pregnancy.
Then the newborn.
Then perhaps the first birthday.

And after that, things slow down.

They're no longer changing every few weeks.
They're simply becoming themselves.

Their personality starts to emerge.
Their humour.
Their independence.
Their friendships.
Their obsessions.
Their relationship with their siblings.
Their relationship with you.
Their little world.
This is childhood too.

And these years are often the ones that get photographed least.

You won't.
And that's okay.

You cannot stand inside a moment and accurately predict its future value.
You might think you'll treasure the photograph of your child's first steps - And you will.

But twenty years from now, perhaps the photograph you reach for will be the one of them sitting on the kitchen floor in their pyjamas with their favourite toy beside them - or all of your pots and utensils as they play their "drums".

You won't know.
Nobody does.

That's why I don't believe in photographing only the moments we already know are important.
I believe in preserving the season.

The whole imperfect, ordinary, beautiful thing.
Because you can't know what you'll miss until it's gone.

For me - 2010 feels like it was just yesterday.
I was a new mum for the last time.
I had a newborn baby and an child at primary school, and every aspect of my life revolved around motherhood.

I photographed my first baby obsessively. I printed everything.
By the time I gave birth to my third child, life was different.
There was less time.
More children.
More noise.
More things that needed doing.
And a lot of ordinary moments that seemed like they would simply continue forever.

That third baby of mine is now learning to drive. My nest is about to be completely empty. And I've found myself thinking about all the photographs I don't have.

Not the birthdays.
Not the Christmas celebrations.
Not the obvious milestones - the life we lived around them.

The things I was too busy living to realise were slowly disappearing (- to be honest, sometimes that "living" felt more like "surviving" - but now I'm on the other side of it - I miss all of the chaos of my kids being little).

And that's when I finally understood what people mean when they say:

"They grow up so fast."

It doesn't mean the years literally disappeared.
It means you didn't realise you were saying goodbye to the little things while they were still happening.

It means one day you'll look at a photograph and realise that version of your child no longer exists.
Not because anything went wrong.

Because they grew.
And that's exactly what we wanted for them.

We just didn't realise that growing up meant leaving so many little versions of them behind.
The baby.
The toddler.
The preschooler.
Each one disappears as the next one arrives... And you can't go back.

You can't recreate the way they used to pronounce that word.
You can't put the old toy back in their tiny hands.
You can't make them three again.
You can only preserve it while it's happening.

Maybe you need something else.
Maybe you need a way to keep a season of your child's life.

That's why I created The Little Years - The Wonder of Firsts.

It's not a single photoshoot.
It's not a collection of milestone portraits.

It's a documentary family photography archive covering the first five years of your child's life - and you can start creating it at any phase - newborn, toddler or preschool.

It delivers two documentary sessions each year.
Enough time between them for your child to change.
Enough consistency to see the story unfolding.
And approximately 50 photographs carefully selected, professionally printed & stored in an Archival Time Capsule, which you receive at the end of The Little Years season.

Something tangible.
Something you can hold.
Something your child can one day open and discover - this is who I was.
This is where I grew up.
These are the people who loved me.

And that's okay.
You don't have to.

You don't need to know which Tuesday morning will become precious.
You don't need to know which silly habit you'll wish you could hear again.
You don't need to know which photograph your grown child will one day hold closest.

You just need to give yourself the chance to remember.

Because the little years don't ask permission before they become the years you wish you could return to.

And perhaps that's the real meaning behind "They grow up so fast."

Not that you didn't have enough time.
But that you didn't realise which parts of it were disappearing while you were living them.

The Little Years - The Wonder of Firsts
From Birth - 5 years.
Beautifully crafted photographs.
Collected slowly.
Preserved completely.

Because childhood doesn't happen in milestones.
It happens in the space between them.