Friend kissed my baby, feeling upset

Mums are biologically programmed to kiss their babies. Lots. It puts whatever germs are on them into your system so that your immune system can form antibodies to pass to your baby through your breast milk. So regardless of your friend, YOU should definitely be kissing the baby if you don’t have active cold sores.

Whilst I wouldn't kiss someone else's baby I don't think it's outrageous enough to post here.

Are you suffering from anxiety because if not you shouldn’t be worried about someone kissing your baby’s cheek

Absolutely crackers! But what’s more crackers is not kissing your baby!!! Mine loves being kissed, her little face lights up when I kiss her! Unless your friend is riddled you are being silly.

My mother (ex nurse) didn't kiss her own grandchildren on the face and neither did DMIL. They kissed them on the side or top of their heads as did DH and I.

As if the baby is going to care if they are kissed on their face or side of their head.

There is enough advice out there about kissing babies to avoid transmission of cold sore virus, etc. for people to know this stuff. The person kissing a baby on their face or kissing their hands, or shoving their fingers in their mouth (just why?) isn't the person who's going to be staying up all night with a sick, fractious baby so maybe they could just keep any germs they may be carrying to themselves.

I think most of us are talking about kissing on the cheek, not the mouth.

Ok and some of us find kissing babies on the mouth bizarre and odd. She also has cold sores! This thread is getting a bit out of control when OP asked about her friend kissing her baby. I’m wondering if there is a huge generational gap going on because I don’t know anyone who would kiss a friends baby. Cuddle yes, kiss no.

I think people are being quite harsh in the replies. As a previous poster pointed out, it’s RSV season and something like that can really harm a newborn. When I had my son I was advised to not let adults kiss my son on the mouth or close to it because of that and do you know if your family get cold sores? I don’t know my family’s status regarding that, so when my boy was very small no one kissed his face. And in the advice I received from my GP and health visitor to not let family kiss on or near the mouth when he was a newborn, they never tell you really when to ‘lighten up’ and when the risk drops. So I think some parents just stick with it to be safe.

Now my parents and in laws and his sibling kiss his cheek or head, but my boy hasn’t suffered any ill-effects from only having head kisses from family for the first few months of his life. Family cuddled him, sung to him, he napped on them. He certainly wasn’t deprived of love and physical affection. I struggled hard for years to fall pregnant, I wasn’t willing to jeopardise the health of my precious baby so my family could kiss him when he was small and at risk of getting very poorly.

Some parents just handle this differently. My LB’s immune system is excellent and he’s only had one cold in his 16 months of life, and in the other parenting communities I’m in (mostly FTM Facebook groups!) this post would have had a totally different and supportive reaction. I was lucky my family understood completely, and respected what I wanted. He gets all the kisses on his head and cheek he could dream of now!

Your mum risking you getting the herpes virus doesn’t mean other mothers should do so. Getting herpes doesn’t improve your immune system fgs. It’s also flu season, RSV, Covid etc and this baby won’t be hurt by friends of her mother not kissing her face! The amount of people kissing others babies is truly shocking.

Oh OP, please kiss your baby. I have a 4 month old and there's nothing more glorious than kissing his cheeks, it is my favourite moment of the days and makes all the sleep deprivation etc worth it. I do sometimes kiss him on the lips, but mostly his cheeks and head. X

You sound pathetic OP and very controlling. You are depriving that poor tiny baby of affection because of YOUR hypochondria.

I wouldn't kiss anyone's baby because I would have no interest in doing so.
You sound a bit odd.

You're poor baby, so so sad that you arent kissing them all day, every night.

Fast forward 20yrs and they will be on here saying they never had affection from their family.

I think it's the baby's safety that most of us are concerned about.

Even the horses kiss my kids! One of them plants his nose on my 5 year olds lips every time he sees her to be smooched.

Bit of dirt does them good. Builds a healthy immune system.

I am sorry.
But this is extreme.

I totally understand your worries, I was exactly the same. In fact, I posted a very similar fear many moons ago when my DTs were babies because a total stranger tickled DD under the chin when she was about 4 months and she grabbed his finger and shoved it straight in her mouth. I was on a spiral of infectious diseases, total panic (so much so I posted on MN) and I was very lovingly told by everyone who posted to just chill out. They were right! Very soon your little one will be eating everything in sight as you know, because your older ones will have done it!

Give your scrumptious baby lots of kisses and cuddles (unless you’re unwell) and remember it’ll be ok and you know what to do in the extremely unlikely event she becomes poorly.

I have a similar age baby and if it’s not a close friend I’d probably feel a bit awkward if they kissed him. I even understand your health anxiety to some extent, as you don’t know what germs they’re carrying and looking after a sick baby is hard.

But you and your family should definitely kiss the baby. You’re all sharing the same germs anyway by living together/ meeting often. You are all missing out, it’s great for the baby to be shown affection and kissing those squishy baby cheeks is one of the best things about having a baby 🙂

I had a friend who was obsessive about germs and bacteria and basically bleached her house every morning once the kids had gone to school. They had to get changed when they came home so she could boil their clothes. It was endless and it was before Covid. Her kids couldn’t play outside hardly. By the time her eldest was about five she was in and out of hospital with immune issues and sickness. The doctors begged her to allow the kids to do normal kids things and come into contact with normal germs. She wouldn’t. It was horrendous. OP you need support. Also it’s bloody sad not to have kissed your baby.

Does she have her own kids? Does she know you're not supposed to? I actually did this when my first friend had a baby... I didn't know it wasn't the done thing! But I wouldn't have been offended if they HAD said, and I'd never do it now.

I wouldn't bother, if I were them. A 6 hour round-trip for 20 minutes visit is mad.

I've accidentally kissed my best friend's baby on the head before - it was just a reflex action on holding a sweet baby that I cared about. I did apologise and she didn't care.

There's been lots of recent publicity about the risks of kissing newborns, since Annabel Karmel very sadly lost a baby to an infection that arose from kissing. It has also filtered onto instagram and tiktok. However, I think the risk of something bad happening to a young baby because a healthy-seeming person kissed them is low on an individual.

At 16 weeks it won't be that long before the baby is crawling around and trying to put all kinds of things in their mouth anyway, so might be good to deal with any anxiety over this now.

You re not just a worried mum. You clearly have significant health anxiety and you should seek treatment as it’s affecting your day to day life and will likely be affecting your children as you transmit that anxiety on.