to not want strangers to keep touching DS without permission?

[Fruitflieslikeabanana]

OK this may turn into a rant

Why is it some people feel the need to touch / stroke / pinch the cheeks of my 10 month old DS? I've just taken him to the GP (D and V for several days but thankfully resolving today) and as I know he is probably contagious I sat as far away as possible from others and kept him sat on my knee. He's doing a lot of babbling at the moment so sat there making bits of noise and blowing a few raspberries which lead not one but two people to come over and put their hands on his face and coo at him.

I'm not particularly confrontational so I don't like just telling people to just go away or snatch DS away. AIBU to expect people not to do this to a child they do not know? It used to happen a lot when he was a small baby but I thought it would stop now he's bigger.

Depressingly it will only get worse. Most other countries would never start a thread like this-it would never enter their heads.

I agree with you pagwatch everybody seems into themselves and everybody else is the bad guys very sad we cant look at a child without hysteria , wel we can look but not touch a cooing baby , children need contact to grow and develop if not then they will become just as insular (sp) as their parents , maybe im just old fashioned

The level of ownership/possession of children is getting insane. They are not owned! What is going to happen when they get to school, etc?

The day people dont notice, gush over or go all mushy over a baby is the day society becomes an even colder place to live in. Be careful what you wish for.

God, I'd love a hold of a baby right now.

I agree that a lot of this way of thinking is about ownership of a baby/toddler. It is obviously wrong to touch a baby if they don't like it, but they will soon tell you that themselves. But parents don't actually own their children and imo if the babies enjoy the interaction and touch - and most do - then thats fine.

if the dc is looking distressed by it , then it isn't good but I think most small dc like friendly attention. I remember when dd was very small and I was a freshly baked mother, sitting somewhere with her on my lap and she wriggled and wriggled like mad, stretching her arms out to a young lad to the left of me. I kept trying to resettle her but she wouldn't stop. This young man said in the end, "I think she wants to come to me". So I handed her across and she settled immediately . It was a weird feeling to have your baby want to sit on a complete stranger's knee rather than her own mothers but I didn't mind. Tbh I quite liked it.

I have had people come up and grab my dd's feet when I was pushing her about in her buggy in summer. She refused to wear shoes and would grip the bottom rail tightly with her toes. I passed a crowd of Italian tourists and the women all had a quick grasp of her feet. She was quite happy with it.

The level of ownership/possession of children is getting insane. They are not owned!

I wonder when we moved from the baby being a person in their own right and became the mother's possession? I think that 'my baby, my rules' should be banned from the language

I wonder when this ownership and parents thinking touch is wrong started ? my children are older 19 and 14 and i can't remember anybody being like this when they were babies , we didnt mind if an old lady cooed over them ,

Whats changed ?

To be honest I don't really get the wanting to touch someone else's baby thing. My family is pretty tactile with each other and I don't feel the need to stroke/touch or cuddle other people - especially people I don't know. I can see most people on here don't feel the same way but to me when people say do you want a cuddle with my baby it's similar to saying do you want a cuddle with my husband/aunt/grandpa etc. I can't really see the difference. However I do generally offer my friends a cuddle with my 6 month old Ds and they generally take me up on it (maybe they just think it would be rude not to). Haven't started asking them I'd they'd like a cuddle with dh yet though..

oh same question exoticfruits

can i just say i dont seek out babies to maul

I don't set out to touch babies-generally I just talk to them. You can generally tell from the baby. It is nothing like a cuddle with an adult-babies don't think in the same way. (Maybe grandpa would like someone to cuddle him but I don't see why he has to get permission from his granddaughter!)

I wonder when we moved from the baby being a person in their own right and became the mother's possession?

So I take it by this that no parent enforces their idiosyncrasies on their children? So indoctrinating children into religion or raising them as vegitarians for example has never happened then, what about mothers who decide to bottle feed over breast feed surely a child in it's own right could make it's own decision?

At birth every parent should be given a copy of Kahil Gibran's poem on Children IMO-especially the first 2 verses:

'Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.'

You are very honoured to have the gift of another human being to nurture, for a very short time. They are a person in their own right and not owned.

If the baby doesn't want to be touched they will make it clear. I am not trying to touch the mother!

You can raise them as vegetarians but by 8yrs they may want to eat meat- or vice versa. My mother gave birth to me-it doesn't mean that we think the same!

Am weeing myself a bit at the thought of "may I touch your baby?"

I like it when people show an interest in my baby. I see it as part of socialising him. He however has mastered the scowl and people recoil in horror if they look in the pram.

I live in a small village and part of my daily life with a 16month old involves walks to the shop as an excuse to get out of the house, wear him out, look at birds, dogs and cars and, shockingly, to talk to people in our community.

I know lots of the elderly residents by sight and they all have talked to my baby (and my older ones) since he was born. One in particular insists on giving DS3 a pound coin every-time she sees him. Which usually involves her forcibly putting it into his hand and then me trying to stop him from swallowing it. I would never dream of stopping her. She always tells me with a very wistful look on her face that she loves baby boys and I do wonder if she lost a child. If the small interaction makes her feel good and takes one minute out of my day why on Earth would I stop it?

iwantcandy - tbh I don't understand why people wouldn't want to touch babies. To me it seems such an instinctual thing. And not at all like touching an adult or even an older child.

One of my happiest memories of dd being tiny was taking her out to register the birth and having tea and cake afterwards. An old lady came over and asked her name/age etc and reached out to stroke her cheek, realised what she was doing and snatched her hand back, apologising. I asked her to sit down and handed dd over. This lovely, gentle woman had tears in her eyes and she thanked me. My grandma is the same. She's 87 and the chance to just touch a baby, to feel how soft they are, to remember her babies in that visceral, organic way, makes her sodding week.

You don't have to like it but you can at least try and understand it. No you don't want to touch other people's babies. You're not lonely though or painfully aware of the passage of time or finding yourself so delighted by the beautiful baby in front of you that your hand's reaching out to stroke a chubby cheek before you can stop yourself. It comes from a good, honest place. I understand why it irks you but in the grand scheme of things, you let it go.

I feel a bit annoyed with the don't-touch-my-baby brigade.
I don't think it's normal or even particularly healthy to be so precious and wary of others.
We are slowly becoming a society of individual, unfriendly little family units.
Modern life is rubbish.

It is so selfish isn't it?Some people have said they have a wide extended family with lots of people they know to touch.What about the poor elderly people without an extended family and no one to touch? Not everyone has grandchildren. I'm sure that you can allow them to touch a foot if the baby is happy.

It kind of is a bit Rubbish pictish its an I am alright stuff everybody else attitude

I am a stroker of babies I suppose. A wee ruffle of the lovely soft baby hair seems totally natural to me. I am a tactile person though, and never felt the desire to view my babies as possessions not to be shared.

I am at work Tomorrow so i will have my baby quota then , although some of the parents are a bit look dont touch

Well there comes a point when your cute baby turns into a toddler, encrusted with snot and weetabix and who has tantrums about being made to go in the pushchair. You'll find old ladies are MUCH less interested in them then.....and you'll miss it. Mark my words....

My mil's elderly neighbour LOVES a cuddle and a stroke and wee cheek pinching sesh with my two little ones. She has four grown up sons who don't much bother with her, and she often talks about when her boys were little as being the happiest years of her life.
It fair makes her day to get a squeeze of a tiny - usually ds2 because dd is intolerant of such attention, and I certainly don't force her to endure it. Ds2 enjoys it though, and hams right up in response.
I barely know the woman tbh, but if it puts a smile on her face it's all good.