Or am I the only one who thinks there's something 'wrong' about entering beautiful baby contests?

[MrsThierryHenry]

I feel rather uncomfortable about the idea of comparing pictures of each other's babies and saying this one's more beautiful than that one, etc. Of course we all (or almost all) think our bambinos are utterly gorgeous, but why would you have a sanctioned public setting in which you compare infants' beauty?

You'd never tell a parent that you thought their child was thicker than yours, so why would you do basically that when it comes to their looks?

Hmm, I do see your point, MrsT. I think it depends on how seriously everyone is taking the competition.

I think a best baby photo comp is better, then the winner is decided more on the quality of the photo and less on the basic looks of the baby.

I entered my dd in one when she was ten months old, the only bald baby in the competition. She stole a bag of crisps from the judge's bag, that is the only reason she didn't win, I'm sure.
I found the whole thing incredibly psychologically damaging...HOW DARE THEY NOT EVEN PLACE MY BEAUTIFUL BABY...you may think its a laugh, but its not. Don't do it!!

They do a local one round here and lots of people enter it because they want to see their baby in the paper!! It doesn't occur to most of them to care whether or not their babies actually win!
I suppose your point of view depends on how seriously you take it...just a bit of harmless fun for most people I'm sure.

Horrified at what happened to Riven though! I'm sure your LO is very beautiful. Shame on the organisers of that competition!

Riven - anyway, don't they make money from phoning in to vote? You could have had a massive family with nothing better do do than sit making voting calls all day!

Mrs Thierry Henry we compare infants beauty.....we compare thier intelligence later, when they are tested at school.

mrsthierry, i do agree.

i wouldnt put my babies in a contest i think my boys are beautiful and that is all that matters to me

I do agree with Piffle, that the majority of babies entered are so not beautiful.
It's fun for the utterly vile made up names though. There does seem to be a correlation between that kind of name and that kind of competition.

omg riven

My DH was the 'Face Of York' when he was a baby. My MIL still has the paper and he won because of his curly ginger hair!

The local paper does one and we didn't enter DS last year. I might do this year just to have the paper with him in. I don't care if he wins because I think he is gorgeous!!

Nothing wrong with them at all.
DS1 won one when he was three. He's still really proud of his trophy and took it in to nursery to show all his friends.

I have entered my dc's in our local one every year, purely because i want the pictures of them!! i now have 2 pics of ds, and 1 of them both together, last year was the first one dd was here for, our local one is on again now and we're going to enter them both again, but only so we can get the pictures!!

I suppose its what past for entertainment in yesteryear, and an opportunity for people to parade and show off their babies. Everyone likes to see a gorgeous little baby don't they? Of course these days we are more aware of labelling and comparing etc, and anyway mine is gorgeous

I entered both my boys and only voted for each of them once. DS2 was too young to realise he hadn't won.
If I did it again I'd put them in the siblings category or only enter DS2.

oh i should ask that we never voted for our dc's, just went for the photo's and dc's both just thought it was 'having their photo taken'.... thats it, dc was 2.5 last year and didn't understand really, dd was 11.5mths and loved it!!! sat there posing, if she's good for them this year i am considering putting her forward for baby modelling!!