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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To really want to pick up and cuddle crying strangers babies?

81 replies

clairemcnam · 08/05/2019 22:04

I understand why parents do not always pick up a crying/screaming baby. And I would never interfere. But God sometimes when I hear a baby I don't even know crying in public, it really physically hurts me and I really really want to pick them up and cuddle them.
Anyone else?

OP posts:
TrendyNorthLondonTeen · 08/05/2019 22:35

"Am I the only one who finds the noise of baby crying unbearable to the point of wanting to pull my own skin off? Disclaimer, I don’t have kids"

100x this. I get that it's annoying for a reason (so that you try and make it stop) but I've never felt this way that people are talking about here.

snoutandab0ut · 08/05/2019 22:36

Hylo as far as I know I don’t have misophonia but the sound just makes me see red. I genuinely wonder if I’m lacking some kind of instinct others have because crying babies/children have only ever made me feel highly irritated and furious. Not that I’d ever express that but it certainly doesn’t trigger any desire to cuddle or protect

SpeedyBojangles · 08/05/2019 22:38

Depends on the age of the child. Newborn - 18months ish then yes. Any older than that and they're having a meltdown then best left well alone.

Fannydango · 08/05/2019 22:40

Oooh I know what you mean! A crying baby or toddler stirs up a lot of mixed emotions in me - yes, to pick them up and comfort them but also a lot of guilt as it makes me remember when mine were small and the crying really got to me and I’d try to block it out or worse, feel frustrated, stressed or even angry because of the crying 😞.I actually find it really upsetting because it reminds me of my failings. My urge to pick them up is absolutely in no way a judgement of the parent, though.

Ineedamanipedi · 08/05/2019 22:40

snoutandAbout - probably you would’ve been one of the cavewomen who would’ve grabbed the baby, tossed it to someone like me and then gone about your business fashioning weapons out of stones or something! Grin

Hylobates · 08/05/2019 22:42

snout I don't even find them cute TBH. I'm just neutral towards them. If there really is such a thing as maternal instinct, it's certainly not common to all women!

snoutandab0ut · 08/05/2019 22:44

Hylo I don’t either. They all look the same. They don’t interest me at all! Hahaha I would probably have been quite a good Stone Age sword whittler

Fairylea · 08/05/2019 22:45

I felt like this when ds was very little. He is nearly 7 now and the noise of babies crying makes me really agitated now Blush I think it’s definitely a broody / evolutionary thing.

FloweryButton · 08/05/2019 22:51

I'm like that too OP, I find it very hard to listen to crying babies toddlers too esp when they are clearly v distressed. When parents just leave their young to scream and cry and ignore them, I feel v sorry for the child, plus I think it's selfish of the parents who inflict it on people around them.

FloweryButton · 08/05/2019 22:54

Strangely the impact was not so great before having a child, I'd probably either not notice or be vaguely irritated - now my heart starts to hurt!

CaptainCabinets · 08/05/2019 22:55

@thecatsthecats

Thrusting them back in their parents? A tad extreme, no? Wink

Stuckforthefourthtime · 08/05/2019 22:59

I don't think it's judgy, it's an instinct. I always assume that the person caring for them is doing better than any attempt I'd make so would never offer, it's just that after 4 babies, every nerve in my body is shouting at me to soothe the infant. Before babies I would have actively run from a crying baby.

SarahAndQuack · 08/05/2019 23:02

The thing is, what sounds to you like a distressed baby may be a baby who's fine. DD went through a stage of making this eerie wailing, a sort of ululating call, which she evidently found soothing. I knew perfectly well she wasn't upset and it was a prelude to falling deeply asleep. Strangers did not.

She's 2 now and she still makes a weird grating sound when she's trying to nod off to sleep. I think it's the vibrations of her voice that she likes.

Raggerty54 · 08/05/2019 23:07

When ds (3 months at the time) was in hospital there was a newborn screaming alone in a room as I was walking down the ward. I paused and felt an overwhelming urge to pick it up and soothe it to the point where I could feel tears in my eyes. Obviously it would have been incredibly inappropriate to pick up someone else’s poorly baby. Luckily the room was near the nurses reception and while I paused I caught the eye of one of the nurses who then directed herself to the room. She probably thought I was some mad woman about to steal a baby but either way I’m glad I caught the attention of some very busy nurses.

Kittypillar · 08/05/2019 23:11

I think it’s just natural - in caveman times if a child was abandoned or left alone in a mud hut in the village or something and was crying the other women would feel a need to cuddle/look after it. Obviously not all women would but maybe we are more nurturing types?

I've always wondered about this! I find hearing to babies cry, particularly newborns, so hard to bear. It's got even worse since my DD was born. Whenever she properly cries it genuinely feels like its physically hurts me. I remember telling DH that when she was tiny and he thought I'd gone mad!

DogHairEverywhere · 08/05/2019 23:27

I also have to school myself not to whip out my boob if i'm holding a newish baby and it starts to root towards me. I hand it back sharpish as the urge to breast feed is strong and no-one needs me to flop out my old, empty boobs anywhere near them Grin.

TimeForDinnerDinnerDinner · 08/05/2019 23:32

YABU OP
...and weird.

UnPocoLoco2 · 09/05/2019 00:06

Pick up a strangers baby and the police will be called 🤪

llewellyn25 · 09/05/2019 00:14

I get the same feeling too. I think it must be a biological urge as others have said. I think it's odd if you don't want to pick up and comfort a crying baby.

Hylobates · 09/05/2019 01:49

llewellyn I explained earlier that I am autistic. You've just called me 'odd'. They say it's me who has problems. Personally I'm not so sure...

OwlBeThere · 09/05/2019 02:09

@Flowerybuttons, my youngest cried every waking minute for the first year of her life, she had severe reflux and unless she was held upright against my chest she cried. Her dad and I were unable to sleep at the same time as one of us always had to be holding her. If I’d never let her cry, I’d never have done anything but hold her and with 3 other children under 5 that wasn’t possible. So fuck off with your judgement,until you’ve had a high needs baby you have NO CLUE.

Kiwiinkits · 09/05/2019 02:27

I can ignore crying babies but I HATE seeing kids who are up too late getting more and more over-tired. Now that is stressful!

ReanimatedSGB · 09/05/2019 02:29

There's a huge difference between feeling distress at the sound of a crying baby (to the point of physical discomfort, leaking tits etc) and being unable to understand that there might be a valid reason for the fact that the parent in charge of said baby has not picked it up, to the point where you have to go and shove yourself into the situation. Some babies do howl, endlessly, for no comprehensible reason (they can't tell you that they're worried about climate change, or disappointed with the new series of Dr Who, or just totally fucking fucked off with the fact that you have dressed them in green socks today when the socks don't go with their lilac onesie, so they just bawl...)

Complainingagain · 09/05/2019 02:42

I read that as the parents were crying too 😂 I had this image of random parents sobbing in the street and being too upset to take care of their babies and the OP kindly swooping in to pick up the babies while they composed themselves.

camelfinger · 09/05/2019 02:42

Mine wanted to be held all the time. I remember practically running back from the supermarket as he was screaming. I decided it would be better to just get home quickly and then cuddle him rather than stop in the middle of the street to comfort him, only for him to start screaming as soon as he went back in the pram.

Another time a woman ordered me to hold him on a busy speeding bus, when we were about to get off anyway.

It was awful, when they’ve been waking up every few minutes for the last 24 hours and someone really helpfully suggests that you need to hold him. Yeah, thanks, had never thought of that.