But can you spoil a baby by holding them?

[Missmac84]

My 2 week old cries unless being held or in his pram.

My sister was up last week and spent the whole week holding him apart from at bedtime.

Can this have caused the issues I'm now having or am I being daft?!

53rd well it's your fault for not buying a goat. After all the baby needs what the baby needs. Shame on you for not even trying to attempt black magic.
For future reference I've heard cockerels work too.

If I ever have another baby like DD was, I can absolutely see myself sprinting across a farmyard trying to catch something to sacrifice. "Somebody grab that goat! It's worth a try!"

OP, you cannot spoil a baby by holding them. It is completely natural for babies to want to be held. I had a very demanding first baby. I got a sling so I could carry her around all the time and have my hands free. It was easier than trying to turn her into something she wasn't, or to listen to her cry her heart out. She is now a very responsible, polite, independent, high achieving young teen. So I doubt I did her any harm.

No you csnt, don't let anyone convince you otherwise, daughter is 3 I held her lots when she was newborn I got told I was holding her too much but they're not little for that long enjoy all you can, my hubby did too and the bond she had with us is lovely now xx I'm 27 weeks pregnant with my second a little boy and plan to do exactly the same enjoy xxx

Im not a mother but am an Aunty to lots of kiddiwinkles and Godmother to a gorgeous little newborn. I really don't think there is a right or wrong way of coping with your newborn..just do what you want to do.

I personally couldn't leave any newborn (family or friends) crying as it'd just break my heart. There so little and just want be cuddled and shown some affection but I also wouldn't pass judgement on any mother who does leave there baby to cry in order to get other things done. Im all for compromise and finding the balance of it all... My neighbour (who I'm Godmother for) has PND so she is always relying on me to come to the rescue as she can't cope with the screaming because she can't get housework done. I don't agree with some of the things she does but I'm not a mother and don't feel like I have any right to tell her to do anything different.

Trust your gut and do whats works best for you. Cuddle them, put them in a sling, put them in a bouncer, leave them to cry for 5 minutes. Do what you feel is right at the time.

I personally love newborns and I cannot wait to have a child myself (getting married in June and already off contraceptive pill but not actively TTC until May time) and I know my baby will be cuddled as long as he/she wants to be cuddled because that's just the way I am. Everything else can wait until they are asleep...there so young and need affection for such a short period of time. Dont waste it and don't listen to anybody telling you 'You shouldn't be doing that'...you carried them and you'll do what you want to do.

Sorry for the long ass message! Enjoy every second of it!

I think do what you feel is right. If you feel your baby is being held to much and is causing settling issues than wean them off it a bit at a time. If you love holding your baby ever chance you get then do it. Your the mum you already no. Nobody trust there instincts anymore and would prefer to trust the say so of strangers

laura sweet post. But you might find some of what you think you're going to do isn't what happens when you become a parent. And you may not enjoy every second of it- but that's ok.

beaverbadgered Totally agree. It's always what i've done if i've looked after nieces and nephews but maybe with my own child 24/7 I may be different. Definitely think there isn't a right or wrong way - it's just what you choose to do at the time :)

I think the truth of the matter is no-one knows if a newborn baby is affected adversely by being allowed to cry for a bit or affected positively by being held all day long.
There have never - as far as I know - been any useful tests or reports that don't involve monkeys or babies being left for significant lengths of time with no interaction or contact. Happy to be proved wrong on this if anyone know better.
My objection is the supercillious suggestion whenever this topic crops up on here that if you do not pander - and I will use that word - to your baby at all times, you are somehow less of a mother and open to subtle judgement.
People with tidy houses also seem to be judged as somehow less caring because having a messy house means you are spending less time being a perfect mother and cuddling your baby all the time.
I for one don't believe a lot of the stuff on here - there's too much posturing - social-media style - of parenting credentials and unless I am just blessed with an entire social circle of extremely disatisfied women, I don't know anyone who has 'enjoyed every minute', although I know of a couple who are fond of telling everyone they do!

cathf there's lots of links to studies in those links I posted upthread.

For example, There's over 20 years of scientific research by Dr McKenna about cosleeping and how newborn babies are biologically designed to need that level of close contact for regulation of breathing, heart rate, temperature, arousal etc (not to mention emotional regulation).

SIDS for example is largely an issue of industrialized nations with modern beds and unnatural sleeping set ups (we have not evolved to sleep in cots).

The benefits for infant development of close maternal contact are well documented scientifically.

That's not saying you can't ever put your baby down (!) just that you won't spoil them by holding them lots, as asked in the OP

yes, I don't think anyone's suggested that you should carry your baby around 24/7, just that doing so won't ruin them.

Also, kali110: "Why is the stock answer always 'why don't you just put them in a sling?'"

Because for many of the people suggesting it, slings were an absolute sanity-saver. I can understand how if you had a baby that was happy to kick around on a playmat, "just put them in a sling!" sounds unhelpful advice because it would be more restrictive for you, and you'd have to carry the baby round with you all the time! But if you had a baby who was an unputdownable screamer, then slings are really freeing, because you can actually walk around and get stuff done with both hands and it's fantastic.

People recommending slings aren't judging you for not using one - they're usually just giving advice to someone who's got a problem you don't have.

Exactly, 53rd
People get very heated on the topic of slings and I'm not sure why . As I've said before , mine means I can have everything tidy , a hot drink and tea made when my toddlers had successive bouts of illness and teething. I need a tidy house to function or I get really stressed out. I don't enjoy every sleepless , exhausting bit of it- it's bloody stressful but the sling has brought me some peace and quiet and it's hands free. Of course I wish he would just sit down and watch tele play quietly with his toys like my dds did when unwell but he won't . And I'd drive myself wild if I had to let housework and my daily cuppa go out of the window because he was screaming the place down.

Cath I wish you would point out the bit where holding/wearing a clingy baby implies a commitment or mandate to enjoy every second of babyhood. I'd stake small sums of money on it that mothers with clingy, screamy babies probably have more periods of non-enjoyment than ones with naturally more contented babies. I had days and weeks where I just survived, and hand to god, on the worst days, I could have packed my bag, walked down the street, and never looked back. That's the simple truth. Find me one comment on this thread where someone declares you have to love every second or you're failing. In return I'll find you half a dozen at least who are saying that holding/wearing their baby was a lesser hell than not doing so.

Regarding leaving babies to cry, do even the most preliminary research on leaving babies to CIO - extinguishing crying at nighttime. There is heaps of research that shows how much stress hormones this releases and the links between that and adverse long term brain development. So yes, leaving babies to cry for prolonged periods can do damage. Have I ever left mine to cry? Of course. Life literally dictates that sometimes other things come up. But go back to the beginning of everything we've been saying about this - those of us with clingy babies worked as hard as we could to avoid it because it was awful. If that sounds like pandering to you, then your version sounds like neglect to me.

ForTheSake there have been multiple comments of "enjoy every second/minute/cuddle" , "my kids never cried because i tended to their every need" , "you prioritise dusting and ironing to tending to your baby" " x,y jobs are not urgent-even when the example was the mum eating,using the toilet and showering" etc I think you get the point. These type of comments are unrealistic, rather goady and shaming mothers that either by choice or need parent differently.

there have been multiple comments of "enjoy every second/minute/cuddle"

There have been people saying "enjoy the cuddles" to the OP, who posted because she was worried that the cuddles would spoil her baby.

There have not been people saying "you must carry your baby in a sling every minute, and enjoy every minute of it!"

Again, this is people seeing what they expect to see based on their own experience and their own preconceptions of who's out to judge them. The whole fuss about dusting upthread seemed to me to be two posters talking past each other by doing exactly this.

Case in point: I can't see anyone saying anywhere that eating, showering and going to the toilet are "not urgent" (although someone did say that about housework). But if you expect to see that, because that's the kind of thing you expect Those People to say, you're more likely to read it into what is there. Which is precisely how this whole conversation turned from "don't worry, OP, it's good to cuddle that baby" into "HOW DARE YOU tell me to cuddle my baby 24/7 and it take care of myself!"

(I did not enjoy every cuddle. Also I am shit at dusting.)

ForTheSake, I was not talking about CIO, as well you know, although I suppose it fits it with your definition of 'neglect'.
I have no beef with parents who use slings and sympathise with parents whose babies are very demanding. In fact, my first son was extremely demanding for the first three months, but I wasn't prepared to waste every day stuck to the settee with a baby on my lap. We walked for miles and he slept in the pram, or in the car. He learned to settle without relying on endless 'cuddles' from me, and for what it's worth has grown up to be a well-adjused 23-yea r-old with no issues at all, as far as I can see, despite the neglectful early weeks.
What I object to is the implication that unless you are sat 'enjoying every minute' snuggling into you baby with housework piling up around you, you are somehow a neglectful parent and need to be shown the error of your ways.

What I object to is the implication that unless you are sat 'enjoying every minute' snuggling into you baby with housework piling up around you, you are somehow a neglectful parent and need to be shown the error of your ways.

But that isn't what anyone is implying. That is a conclusion you are drawing in your own head about what you think people believe.

As ForTheSake pointed out, those of us with demanding, screamy, unputdownable babies were very likely not Enjoying Every Minute.

Since 53rd has dealt so thoroughly with rebel I'll focus just on your post cath - once again, point out to me a post where people have explicitly commanded the OP, or indeed anyone, that they must enjoy every second. You can infer anything from anything, as 53rd has pointed. If that's your projection based on your own insecurities then so be it. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But there's a world of difference if you're hearing people say "enjoy the cuddles" as "you must enjoy the cuddles" rather than "I hope you enjoy the cuddles". Christ. I tell people to enjoy their birthdays/weekend/food/enemas all the damn time. Imagine if they all marched off thinking "fuck you, I damn well won't do as you tell me!" I doubt they do. I imagine they get the gist, which is not a command but a well-wish.

And back to CIO - I raise it as a perfect example of choosing to leave a crying baby unattended for an extended period, which is a reasonable equivalent to your argument about leaving a baby to cry presumably during the day so that parents can go do whatever else for however long. I'm not sure how that wasn't terribly obvious but I'm happy to spell it out.

Imagine if they all marched off thinking "fuck you, I damn well won't do as you tell me!"

This made me laugh.

my babies never cried because I attended to their needs.

You tell me that comment is "seeing what i want to see" and I will gracefully bow out of this discussion.

Did someone actually write that?? Christ, I'd think they'd need their heads testing if they did. I spent hours trying everything to meet the needs of mine. Wish to god I'd known what he wanted whilst he was screaming his head off.

I'm putting that up there with "I potty trained mine at nine months" and "my three year old reads Chaucer". Sure, love. Sure.

That's the type of comments i referred to and i took an objection to. Mostly I'm meh,do what works don't do what doesn't work as long as you don't tell me what should work for my child. Nothing frikking worked except gaviscon. I recommend Gaviscon .

I am in 100% agreement about wildly unrealistic standards - and, as ever, what's wildly unrealistic will vary depending on anyone's given situation. The thing that especially irritates me about the "my baby never cried" fairytales is that, not only is that stupidly unhelpful, let's pretend it's actually true - what good does it do me? That's not my baby or situation, and doing X just like you do which works a charm with yours is having no effect on mine - not because I'm not trying hard enough or my heart isn't in it or because my baby is the devil (well… I'll get back to you on that) but because this baby is simply different.

Anyway, I may have gone off piste. I think my general view is do the best you can, and that best will differ person-to-person, day-to-day. Some days my best was sling, survival, and mainlining 85% cocoa chocolate. Other days we got out of the house, whilst still mainlining chocolate.

Well obviously saying your baby never cried has to be an exaggeration (?!). ALL babies cry, it's how they communicate.

As a VERY general rule babies who needs are met will cry less than those whose needs are being ignored and neglected (although severely neglected babies actually stop crying eventually, that's not a good sign).

There are however, babies that scream blue murder no matter what you do. No matter how much you give yourself to them. My DD was held basically 24/7. She slept on me day and night, was carried in the sling and was only put down for very brief periods when I had no choice. She still screamed. Even when her reflux was under control with 20mg omeprazole (god bless that drug) and I was on a strict exclusion diet for her allergies. She cried. She screamed for and hour every bedtime because she needed to. It was her emotional release as she's very sensitive and would get sensory overload by the end of every day.

Comments from my DM and MIL that I had somehow caused her clinginess and crying because I held her too much just made me feel like a shitty failure. When in actual fact looking back I can see that is total bollocks. She is who she is. She needed me to hold her all the time.

I think the take home message is that you cannot 'spoil' a baby by holding them. Infants are biologically programmed to need to be physically close to mum. Babies are all different in how much contact they need to feel secure. Some babies are 'easier' than others.

Mums have needs to (toilet, showering etc). It is not neglecting your baby to attend to those needs. Everyone has to navigate that line between juggling their baby's needs with their own/their families needs in their own way.