I have had sleep battles with Drake since he was a newborn. Even now I think he gets far less sleep than he needs, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it. I put him down around the same time every day, but he can stay up for hours playing, talking, and singing to himself. I can put him down but I can’t make him sleep, so I’ve learned over time to deal with it. On top of not liking sleep, he is also a very light sleeper. If he falls asleep in the car, he wakes up as soon as the car stops. I used to try to sneak into his room to make sure he was breathing, and the moment I opened the door he would sit up (he does this in the morning too).  He uses a white noise machine, but still wakes up the moment you step foot in his room. For the longest time Mr. Chocolate and I tip toed around his bedroom after we put him down out of fear the slightest noise would wake him up and it would be hours before he would go to bed again.

After Drake turned one and we no longer worried about SIDS in the winter, we lined his bed with as many blankets as we could since we knew we would never be able to go in and tuck him in after he had fallen asleep like so many parents do. We hoped that we could insulate his bed enough that he would stay warm even if he wasn’t covered.  We joked he was our little hamster with all that bedding.

Shortly after we moved into the new house, one night I realized I forgot something in Drake’s room after he was already asleep. In our house the number one rule is never wake Drake, but I took a chance and opened the door. Imagine my surprise to find Drake still asleep even after I stepped into the room. I tip toed over to the crib and looked in, as it was so rare that I got to see him asleep. Then I got an idea and quickly tip toed out of the room and ran to get my camera. I adjusted my settings in the hall so that the small little camera clicks wouldn’t wake him up, and took a photo. After 2 1/2 years it was just so nice to be able to see him look so peaceful, childlike, and quiet.

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The next night I took a chance again and snuck into his room, praying with each step that he would stay asleep, and he did. At the time I had been going through a rough time with the move, finding out I was pregnant with Juliet, my father passing away, Hurricane Sandy, and hadn’t picked up my camera in months. Something about capturing Drake asleep woke something inside of me artistically, and every night I would take the risk and sneak into Drake’s room to capture him sleeping. I did this for well over a month, faithfully documenting a picture a night until daylight savings time came and ruined his sleeping patterns for good. Still over that short time period I felt not only a growth in my photography, but also personal growth as I learned to deal with all my swirling feelings from all these big life changes.

I still sneak in there  occasionally when the mood strikes me, and over time I think my sleeping series is some of my better work to date.  I thought I would share a few of my favorite images as well as what I learned from this little experiment.

C O M P O S I N G

When Drake is awake, he is as busy as you can imagine a toddler is. Sometimes I’m lucky if I can even grab my camera before he is zooming away from me again. Oftentimes I’m just frantically snapping away after him and not really paying attention to my composition in camera. With this little series I discovered since my subject was not moving around, I could take the time to really look at the photo and the story I wanted to tell with the camera and make better decisions about how to compose everything in frame. While it’s still harder to do this when Drake is awake, some of it has rubbed off thankfully in my normal shooting, and I think as a whole I am developing a better eye for composing largely because of this experiment.

D E T A I L S

Often when I go into the Drakes room he isn’t always positioned in the best way to take a photo, either facing away from the light or with his face half covered by a blanket. Since I’m not going to touch him to get a photo, I learned to find other ways to document the moment and show the story even if you can’t see his face. Little details when shot with a purpose and story in mind can sometimes be just as compelling and strong of an image as a portrait.



P E R S P E C T I V E  &  A N G L E S

When I first started shooting I would just go in from the standard above the crib shot to show Drake sleeping.  Over time though I got bored of the same image and discovered that by moving myself around the crib and trying different heights, shooting through the railings, or standing on a few books, I could vary my images making them more visually appealing and challenging myself to find that next new perspective.  This has also cross over somewhat to my regular every day shooting, which helps me grow and become a better photographer.

As with everything in life things don’t always go as you planned and that’s ok. As you can from the photos below, sometimes I would sneak in only to find out that Drake was still indeed a light sleeper, and of course I paid the price those nights for waking him up.

And lastly, my son is often very weird when he sleeps.


Yes he was really asleep like this!