Will you let people hold your baby?

[Cherryhill22]

Hi, I am due next month. Just wondering what people are doing now with regards to introducing their new babies to friends and family with Covid still around?
I know lockdown has been eased, social distancing is still in place so I am not sure what to do. I want to balance keeping baby safe with letting people meet and bond with him when he comes.

Mine's due in a couple of weeks and I won't be letting anyone hold her apart from DH. Not worth the risk.

I've let 2 close friends hold mine as I know they have been carefully following guidelines. She was born just before lockdown though so is a bit older.

Definitely not getting passed round for cuddles the way her big sister was a couple of years ago.

Yes, I was thinking of asking family not to hold. My family have not taken the covid lockdown rules seriously. My brothers are both doctors and were visiting my parents even at the peak of Covid and before the bubble rule was introduced. I think they will challenge me on this but, better safe than sorry.

I’m going to let family and close friends hold mine. I know I can trust them and they’ve all been social distancing. The risk to babies is also very low (I suspect people will be more at risk from us having been in hospital than we will be from them...).

Im not sure to he honest, not that my die date is getting closer im starting to think about these things, i think i will ask what midwives think at my next appointment

I asked my midwife this exact question at my appointment this week. Her advice was that babies immune system is new and untested so should endeavour to keep distance as much as possible especially during early days and first few weeks. She said if family had been self-isolating, and we could be sure them not mixing with other households, then to make a judgement call on how confident we felt about keeping us all safe. But if family had been out and about, mixing households etc, then to introduce baby to them by inviting them to see baby through the window. 😔

For me, my in laws have been and continue to shield, but my family have been out and about as well as being key workers so lots of mingling and face to face etc with possible risks. DH and I have agreed to make a judgement call nearer the time but whatever we do for one side of the family we'll do for the other side too. Not feeling great about it tbh as it is our first child and also my in-laws first grandchild.
Also due next month!

I've let immediate family hold the baby. To be honest I regret it as now they just expect to hold and also constantly try to disregard our original rules like to wear a mask or not to touch the baby's face.

I’m due this month and I have been advised not to let anyone apart from DH and DC1 hold the new baby so we will be sticking to that.

I think you're being ridiculous. There have been 3 cases of children under 9 dying of Covid. One of whom was on the transplant list and would have potentially died had he gotten a cold or tonsillitis... for comparison, around 25 children a year die of chickenpox and yet most people think it's a great idea to allow their children to catch it and "get it out the way".

Have you considered the long term impact of this on your child? Bonding is hugely important. Close contact etc. You're denying your child important developmental relationships with wider family. Who knows what the lasting implications of that will be?

My baby is 3 weeks old and we haven’t let visitors hold her.

Not due for a while yet but both me and DH are very vulnerable so we decided that nobody will hold the baby or be allowed inside to mostly protect ourselves (we only saw our parents outside at a distance since all this started). It seems that the virus is in the droplets that people simply breathe out so they would breathe over baby, and then infect us when we hold her afterwards. They can come watch us through a window but that's it till we had a vaccine (plus the two or three weeks till we're actually protected from said vaccine). DH is the lucky one who gets to tell MIL...

It's so not how I imagined to introduce our baby, I'd rather show her off but it's not worth the risk. If we want to start our family in a happy way then it needs to be a healthy way.

I'm in the tricky situation where I want to protect and shield my baby (not due until November but nothing seems to be changing so it worries me) but we live at my parents due to me and my partner both losing our jobs at the start of lockdown. Partners parents will kick off if we don't let them see baby as baby will see my parents as we live with them. We cant expect my parents not to go to work to shield baby, same with partners parents and even if we told them only to go to work and not socialise I'm sure they would socialise behind our back. Then we have siblings, we both our close with our siblings and turn up without invite whenever they like. With it not beeing our house we don't have control over who visits. My brother lives with my parents too and his girlfriend comes and goes, stays round a few nights a week and is allways talking about all the places she's been. I feel so out of control of being able to shield my baby. My mum is a teacher, my dad works at a factory and my partners mum is a receptionist at a doctors, so all high risk jobs in my eyes.

I’m only 22 weeks but if the situation stays as it is I won’t stop any family members from holding baby. I just think life is too short so wouldn’t deny anyone opportunity of bonding with her. I will be saying if plan to see baby no unnecessary risk like going to pubs and wash hands then sanitise etc but I won’t stop anyone from holding her.

My partner has a son who doesn’t live with us and despite his mum stopping contact during lockdown as my partner works in special needs school so was still going into work she hasn’t been following guidelines and went and stayed at her brothers house and her mum taking child to Wales soon and was mixing with her friends during lockdown. We feel it’s unfair on partners son to limit contact as a precaution but as my pregnancy continues we feel it’s unfair they risking our safety through recklessness but not much can do really.

That sounds like a difficult situation. Might it be possible to have a sit down with the family and explain your concerns then come up with some rules about handling the baby together? E.g. no other family members to pick up until 2 weeks old, if they do pick up baby wash hands, don't hold baby close to face...

Babies are at risk of picking up viruses/infections at any point, not just from coronavirus? Are you going to stop people holding and seeing any future babies in future? A cold can just be as deadly to a baby, but how are you meant to know if someone is carrying a cold? The virus isn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be. Life’s too short to be living in fear.
No one is obviously going to be handing their baby over to strangers so surely you can trust your family and friends to not come around if they even may feel the slightest unwell

We have a five week old. I asked at one of my appointments in pregnancy and was told there's no need to do anything beyond the guidelines to the general public. Here that means up to six people can meet indoors with distancing. We've broken the distancing bit and allowed the grandparents cuddles - as someone else said, we were a bigger risk to them than them to us.

We haven't seen any other family due to distance. Some close friends have visited, we would've allowed them hold her but she slept through both visits and no one wakes a sleeping baby regardless of covid

I’m not due until November but I’m planning on allowing family to visit (hand gel will be near our door as will masks). I watched the Stacey Dooley programme the other night and hospitals are not separating mums who may have tested positive for corona virus from their babies. If you look at the scientific evidence, it is no more a worry to children than any other virus that may be circulating. I am actually more worried about baby developmental issues due to not seeing people’s faces, having interactions with people and attending baby groups to be honest.

I am going to be strict with no touching babies face though and I’ve bought some Pram/car seat tags from Etsy which say ‘please look don’t touch, your big germs are too much for me’. Even if people don’t read them, it will remind me to warn them.

At the end of the day, it’s your baby so your call. People should respect that whatever you decide. :)

I would expect them to wash hands and possibly wear a mask, but I wouldn't want to stop bonding x

I’m due in 4 weeks and won’t be letting anyone hold the baby other than DH. We are on a localized lockdown at the moment due to an increase in cases in our area and none of our family and friends have followed social distancing rules from the start.

As long as social distancing is recommended between households I’ll be sticking to that personally.

@epythymy no newborn is going to be damaged by not being held by extended family, that’s madness.

I’m due in November and not sure what I’ll do. It’s difficult as a lot of family are teachers so will have been mixing with lots of kids etc. I think given it’s cold/flu season anyway I’d rather be safe than sorry and give it a couple of months before letting anyone else hold her.

I've got an 11 day old atm and we've not allowed anyone to hold her. I don't know at what stage we will change this cause I was also worried about the lack of bonding with family but I don't know if it will actually cause an issue or not.
Some family don't understand and it makes it a bit awkward but it makes me and DP feel better not allowing her to be passed around to everyone.

I wouldnt be too worried about bonding issues with family. TBH I always found newborns kind if boring, its only until they were chunkier and older and sitting up and stuff that I found them more appealing and felt more of a bond.

My area is back into lockdown locally, as is the area where my mum and siblings live. For that reason I won’t travel and let my mum or siblings meet or hold the baby until it’s deemed safer because I have to shield for underlying conditions, as does my mum. I live with my fiancée and his mum, both of which will be able to hold the baby. My fiancées mum is awful at social distancing and being safe though, so I’ve made it clear she has to be safer when the baby is here and wear a mask and wash her hands regularly to hold him just for my own sake of mind but I wouldn’t want to stop them bonding by saying she can’t hold him. I’ve also established a no kissing rule because I don’t want to risk the baby catching something that way. I’m due in less than two weeks and I feel horrible for not letting my own mum meet him when he’s here, but with how her area is in terms of the virus and how little she protects herself it’s for the best and she’s agreed with me on that despite being understandably upset about it. I’m pretty anxious about letting anyone outside the household meet my little boy when he’s here after I’ve spent the last seven months not going outside for anything other than essential trips to protect us both, but I won’t budge on my set rules because I know if I do I’ll be so anxious and I’d never forgive myself if something happened to my little boy because of the virus