How to create a milk bath backdrop for your newborn session

During the fall there is very little time for me to play and create just for me, but I had one weekend free in October and had been toying around with the idea of trying a milk bath.  If this is a new concept to you, basically a milk bath is exactly what it sounds like… a bath full of milk!

When I was researching the idea, most of the milk baths I saw were for maternity sessions.  While I love this idea, I wanted to go a different direction and use a milk bath as more of a backdrop for a newborn session. Thankfully I had a friend who had just had a baby and my girls had been on me about going to meet her.  When I asked her to help me style and create this kind of session she joyfully agreed.

If you are looking for something new, or just something to try for your next session, here are a few tips and tricks I learned that made my vision move forward!

Since we didn’t have a bathroom with a window, we decided to get a clear tote to use as the “bath”.  I went to the grocery store and picked up a pack of flowers and 1 gallon of whole milk.  If you are using a small container like this one, one gallon should be all that you need.  If you are filling a bathtub, I would suggest 2-3 gallons.  We started by placing the flowers in the tub and then pouring the milk over them, but after doing this, I would suggest to start by pouring the milk and adding the flowers where you would like them.  When using flowers or greens, we found real flowers work better than fake ones as they tend to float.

After you pour in the milk and add the flowers, you will probably want to add water to create more of a translucency.  This is where some of the creativity comes in as to how watery you want your background to look.

We cut down the stems and added greenery to get the look that I liked.  My dear friend also created a headpiece by using a cloth headband and then hot glueing some flowers to the headpiece.

After working for a while to get baby to sleep, she just held her over the milk bath to get the desired look we both liked, and I just love the outcome!

Of course we had to do some basket shots (My sweet daughter helping soothe baby back to sleep!)

And some with her sisters

I just love the way these turned out and hope to be able to offer more of these types of sessions in the future!  If you are interested, please let me know, I’d love to make it happen!