Not to have choke-slammed the people who rubbed money on my newborn son?

[puntasticusername]

Another "unsolicited touching" thread, sorry.

I was in the pub today with DS2 (4 days old) (no no, I wasn't getting leathered, it was just the most convenient place to get a coffee and to feed and settle him out of the cold).

As we went to leave, I wheeled him past a table full of people who were, er, full of Christmas spirit and desperate to have a look at him in his pram.

I didn't mind that at all, so I stopped the pram and started answering re name, birth weight, did he give me a rough time etc.

Then, to my surprise, two of them whipped out their wallets and started digging around for loose change. They each produced a 20p piece and said it's a Scottish custom to rub a coin on the new baby and leave it tucked into his clothing somewhere. It brings good luck. I didn't mind, did I?

At this point all I could think was "I've never ever heard of that custom but Omg, surely coins are some of the least hygienic things you could possibly contrive to rub on a new baby", and I didn't quite manage to construct the polite refusal that I ideally would have liked. So they went ahead and rubbed the coins on his cheek. Then we left, with their boozy good wishes ringing in our ears.

One of them was very pleased that he managed to get DS to "hold" his coin himself, by tucking it in his coat sleeve, but the other (a woman) gave her coin to me and said aside "obviously it would actually be very silly to leave a coin inside a baby's clothes...you will take that other one out as soon as you get out of here won't you...Ok, good".

So...just on the basis that I felt instinctively uncomfortable with this unfamiliar ritual, I do rather wish I'd come up with some way of firmly putting them off, though without being rude to them...but based on other threads on here lately I'm now starting to feel that I really should have been as "forthright" as was necessary to persuade them to desist. But they were so nice, and so genuinely pleased to see my baby - and are they that likely to have done him any harm whatsoever, really? I was rather touched by the joy they took in a child they didn't know and who means nothing to them, but who they wanted to celebrate simply for being born.

(I do wish it to be noted that I did not go overboard re the hygiene aspect, and I refrained from rubbing his little cheek raw with a wet wipe as soon as we were out of sight. I Let It Go).

WIBU to let them do the weird money thing - was it pleasant and harmless, or have I actually kind of let my son down a bit by not protecting him from such random acts by strangers? I don't know, and quite possibly I'm just vastly over thinking the whole thing as I'm a hormonal new mum.

Scottish person here, £1 in the pram, not touching his or her hand where I am is the custom, lovely, my kids are in their 20`s, if someone had put money in my new born child's hands I would have went mental!!!!

Mmmm, suppose it'd been fifty quid notes they rubbed on his face? Or even twenties or tenners?

My lovely Dad always put a coin into a new baby's hand. It is supposed to bring them wealth or something.

You were not being unreasonable and I doubt your gorgeous baby will suffer any ill effects from the coins.

If there had been paper money involved, I would have considered the hygiene issues to have been even more pressing and would have immediately taken the paper money well out of the baby's vicinity all the way to the bar.

Not just a Scottish thing. They do it in Portsmouth too. But they don't rub. Just try and get them to hold it. Meant to be lucky.

This happened to my DS when he was a few days old, it's a custom to cross a baby's palm with silver, I didn't mind at all and his lucky 50p coin has been in his bag ever since.

harmless bit of fun...

You were in a pub with your newborn...

Still a custom in Liverpool, you put silver in the palm.

It's is to do with Silver having protective qualities (think Warewolves, Ogres, Curses etc) and it brings them luck, as Silver has lucky properties.

That is why Churches have Silver candlesticks, Silver and Amethysist was always worn by Church leaders etc, it is a very old tradition, probably as old as the Solstice/Winer Festival, so very fitting, really.

Nothing wrong with being in a pub with a newborn flogging

It will be a nice story to tell him

Alright, I'll put my serious face back on and address the pub thing again, despite having already done so in my OP.

We were out for a family walk (me, DH, DS1, DS2 and DM). It was very cold outside and baby was in need of a feed and a cuddle, and a reassessment of his hat situation (it kept slipping over his eyes and annoying him, needed rolling over a bit).

Our options were to go into a family pub, in the middle of the afternoon; walk 10m further on to Costa Coffee; walk 20m home. The family pub serves coffee and has a great set of indoor toys for DS1 to play with. And, when we went in, it was - quite unsurprisingly - mainly full of families having meals. If we'd gone in and it was actually really rough, we'd have left again (and walked the ten further minutes to Costa I guess). It's not that I was surprised that there were people in the pub who'd been drinking, especially at Xmas!

So - those of you who are questioning the fact that we took the baby into A PUB - what would you have done instead, do you think?

Btw 10m and 20m is 10 and 20 minutes, not metres (or miles...)

My mother always hanselled a new baby, she was Irish and we have kept it up, handing over the largest coin in your purse when you see the child.

You may want to stay in on the first Monday of the year, as we do it again then!

I took DS to a children's party in a family friendly pub when he was three weeks old and he made £26 in about ten minutes.

I seriously considered visiting every other pub in the area with him after that

There wasn't any face rubbing, but they did touch the money to his hand for luck before passing it on to me for safe-keeping.

If it's not something that's happened before I imagine it does seem like an odd custom.

It didn't bother me that people wanted to touch his hand or rub money on his palm, but I have a friend whose new baby has been diagnosed with CF and I know it would have upset and bothered her very much because of the risk of infection however small.