"My baby"

[tocas]

Genuinely not sure if I ABU or not. It makes me cringe when people call their children over the age of about 6 months "my baby". In my eyes they just don't necessarily seem like babies any more. I can sort of understand up until 12 months but definitely not after. I've come across people calling their child of nearly two year old "my baby".
Aibu?

i also have no children of my own - my younger sister is ‘ the baby’ (50 yrs old), my dog is my baby ( clearly not a natural birth) , and the youngest member of our extended family, at 8 months is also, ‘the baby’
It’s just a term of endearment , and an easy reference that the family all understand. It’s a bit weird of you to care to be honest .

This. And I’m 59😂

odd thing to post about really

I’m in my 40s and still referred to as baby in my family, as the youngest.

I call DS3 baby directly. As in, ‘it’s bath time baby’. But not to other people, so I wouldn’t say ‘my baby goes in the bath at 6’. I’d just use his name. But it’s a term of endearment and I can’t say I’d really be bothered if I heard this!

My one's a 185cm, 24 y.o. firefighter and engineer. He was tiny (2kgs) when he was born so he still gets called the 'baby' !

I call all my kids “my baby."
I think it's from letting the older ones know when a new baby came along, that they were still my baby too.
Seems to have worked, we've never had any sibling rivalry and they all adore each other.

I have a 7 year old and 12 month old. Both my babies and will always be my babies! Even when they’re adults, and maybe have their own. It’s currently descriptive of my youngest but also a term of love and endearment to both.

Yes, all the time they were completely dependant on me. Once they could talk, walk, feed themselves solid food, potty trained etc and became a little more independent then they became a child

in my view a baby indicates physical dependancy on adults - for some kids that can be 3 , but I’d say anything between 18 months and 2 years is typical

And babies tend to stop being a baby if a new baby comes along 🤣🤣🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

but I still sometimes call my 6 foot 7 inch 26 year old my baby as a joke term of endearment- he was my youngest and will always be the baby of the family 🤣🤣🤣 but only to him and his brother and his partner - I’d not say it to anyone else

My baby is 32 in March she'll ALWAYS Be MY BABY So Suck It Up Buttercup!

My eldest is 19 and I still, and will always, call her Bubba

A very very very young adult?

I think under 2 I’d probably have said ‘I needed to pick my baby up,’ after that I’d say my child or simply my daughter…. But if I bump into someone I’ve not seen for years I always say something like ‘look this is my baby, all grown up and taller than me!!’…
I think there’s a huge difference to referring to a child as ‘a baby’ or ‘my baby’….
Some people call their partners ‘baby’ or ‘babe’ … it’s not a reflection on actually thinking they’re an actual baby

I totally get it, and my mum still calls me her baby girl and I’m 40, but people are getting a little bit defensive about it. She’s admitted SWBU people, she’s been roundly admonished, calm down.

Very obvious you don’t have children. Odd post if you think a 12 month old isn’t a baby.

Although this thread is mad, it’s actually turned really lovely: page after page of besotted mummies talking about their babies. Having a nice hormonal happy weep here with my BABY on my chest.

What a strange thread

@LifesTooShortForYourNonsense
“That dog/cat is not your baby, you are not it’s mother, it’s a different species“

THIS I so agree with. Owner not mum

I actually introduced my DD19 as my baby at the weekend 😆 it was to family that we hadn’t seen in years!

opnionated non-mother much?

My 16 and 18 year olds are my babies and always will be! I prefer to remember them as babies than the stinky teenagers full of attitude they are now!

YABU & strange.

Oh get a life. I know he’s a different species, that was clear when I picked him up.
But to most of the dog walking population, to my vet and my dog trainer, I am simply ‘dog’s mum’. It’s easier for them to remember his name than mine…

My baby girl is in the RAF. They're always your babies

My child's 4 and I say to DP I'm going to get baby from nursery.
Love him 💙

I get what you mean. You don't mean as a term of endearment, you mean actually referring to them as babies. I think it is a perspective thing. You've seen them grow from helpless little things into real little people. I was the same as you when mine were little and was annoyed AF when MIL called them "The Baby" when they were 3! But in my case I had my second (DS1) when my first (DD) was 18 months old. So she wasn't even quite one when I got pregnant. In my mind at that point DD wasn't a baby because I had an actual baby on the way. I remember bumping into a woman who I'd been with on the maternity ward when DD was born. I think at that point our girls were around 15 months and I forget what she was talking about but she used the phrase "babies of Hannah's age". (Hannah was her DD's name.) And it wound me up so much I wanted to scream "She's NOT a baby!" But looking back (DD is 22 now) I think of 15 month olds as definitely being babies, probably because I've seen the whole process of childhood and 15 months is still at the very beginning.