QOTD #11: Have you ever held an infant?

i have, i held my daughter. she was about 10 minutes old when i held her for the first time. it was very emotional for me. up until that point i had never held an infant. all i remember is my wife telling me to support her head. now that shes 7 i wish she was still that small. man time flies.....

 

The first time I remember now was probably one of my nieces or nephews in my early 20's. I strongly suspect the first time was when I was in the elementary school age range.
The most memorable would be holding my daughters when they were newborns.

 

I was a teenager when my three younger brothers were born, and I held them all within hours of their birth (held the oldest of the four, too, but I was only three at the time.) Other than that, I've held...a whole lot of babies. Cousins, cousins' kids, friends' kids, teachers' kids. Seems like there were always babies & small children around.

I think the two youngest were my friend J's kid (visited the day he was born), and BabySquirrel, who I got to visit when she was only three weeks old

Edited to add: I love the way babies smell. And I'm always slightly worried that I'll break them, even though I've had enough practice to know how to not break them.

 

Yes. Aside from random family babies, I of course have held my own twin daughters.

 

Yep - have 2 boys. You can pick the newbie baby carriers - they stand like they are holding a priceless vase and are *so* scared of dropping it. There is a certain terrified look they get

We have a friend who is a midwife and it is somewhat eye opening how comfortable she is with babies (obviously handles a lot!)

 

My youngest daughter does not even talk at age 7 and says more with her gestures and adapted ASL (word s like 'more' and 'please') than most of us do verbally.

 

Caught both of mine coming outa the womb.

 

I was in my 30's when I held my nephews for some pictures. But that is it.

(I've actually said "I don't want to hold your baby" to my friends when I was in college. I can't explain why, but then again I don't really regret it either.)


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaaMmi4mX2I

 

Yes. My two sisters married young & had kids right away. As a young teenager I could hold 'em, feed 'em, burp 'em, get 'em to sleep, & even change diapers if need be. I confess that I usually handed the baby back to mon at that point.

I babysit-ted (babysitted? babysat?) for one sister, thankfully my nephew was out of diapers by then. I used to make lunches using boxed mac-n-cheese with cut-up lunch meat mixed in, and noodles mixed with cream of mushroom soup & chopped-up lunch meat. Yummy, right? Recently my nephew told me that he still eats mac-n-cheese with chopped-up lunch meat.

 

I have no siblings, or any cousins close to my own age (barely any cousins at all, actually). I never held a baby until I was in rabbinical school, and one of my classmates had a kid. I must've been like 35 or 36. I was terrified I would fumble the kid. Terrified I would scare the kid. Just plain terrified.

Turns out babies like me.

Now, having two little kids of my own, I see a friend with a crying baby, I'm like, "OK, hand 'im over. I got this."

 

Both my daughters and many others when I helped run a daycare.

 

Before BabySquirrel, I held many, many babies.

Nieces
Baby Cousins
Friend's babies
Babysat babies.

I looooove babies. I haven't held a teeny tiny one since I held my friend's, now 8 month old, a few months ago. I'm jonesin for some baby snuggles. ;-)

(I know what you're thinking, but DaddySquirrel says no.)
--- merged: Sep 24, 2015 at 7:16 PM ---
Thinking about it though, BabySquirrel was the first baby holding experience for a few of my friends too.......

 

I've loved holding, feeding, changing, cuddling, soothing... babies since I can ever remember. My extended family is legion and I could never recount the number of babies I've held, including my own 3 children and 2 grandchildren and my children's friends' babies.

In February, when my grandson was born, my daughter and her boyfriend visited the hospital. At 30 years old, the boyfriend had never held a baby. No one among his family and friends had ever had an infant (!). He was terrified to even approach the child... would not come within arms length. When offered the opportunity to hold the little one, he ran the other way! He is truly baby-phobic. I have never seen anything like it in my life.

 

I've held my two, and quite a few friend's babies.

The youngest I've held would have been seconds old. My son was in my arms less than 60 seconds from birth. My daughter was less than 90 seconds.

Holding your own kids is special, I want to say magical but that isn't quite right. My friends just had a baby a couple weeks ago and I held their baby a couple days after it was born. If nothing else it reminded me of what it was like to hold my kids when they were that small. It's easy to forget how small they are when they are as big as mine are.

 

My daughter, of course, a whole lot. Probably some others, but I don't recall now.