Walking into the grocery store, I am super excited that my youngest is still asleep in her car seat. I am looking at possibly grocery shopping at a leisurely pace. My older 2 are in preschool. I have performed the miracle of getting her from the car into the store without waking her up. And within 2 minutes an older lady comes up to me and grabbed her foot while she is sleeping and says “What a cutie!”. Eeek!!
I am super non-confrontational but this almost had me screaming. Seriously…I am about to be able to grocery shop in peace and she is waking up my baby!
Do you constantly have to figure out how to stop strangers from touching your baby? Welcome to the Protective Mom Club! Every mother with a newborn is approached by strangers when out in public. Babies are just so adorable and I think their innocence attracts people because babies make people feel good. New life, new possibilities.
Normally it is not a problem for me but would like to minimize it without being rude to people. If you are a germaphobe or just don’t like the idea of people invading your baby’s personal space it is completely ok to stop people from touching your baby.
Here are 3 Tips to Keep Strangers from Touching Your Baby
1.A Cute Don’t Touch Sign – Since I am so non-confrontational I prefer to take actions before I even go out to stop it from happening. Hanging a cute sign on the car seat helps stop the touching without you having to say anything.
2. Prepare a statement. I find if I have a phrase in my mind to say that I know isn’t rude then I am more likely to feel strong enough to say it. If you practice it a few times at home then it is easier to say in real life.
- “Feet not Hands Please. His hands go straight into his mouth.”
- “Before You Touch Please Wash Your Hands.”
- “I’m sorry but she is really sensitive to touch.”
- “Please look but don’t touch.”
3. Wear your baby as much as possible – Strangers are much less likely to touch a baby when they are within your personal space. If you are going into a party people will be more likely to touch your baby if they are in a car seat or stroller rather than putting their hands near your chest to get to their face. I love the Baby Bjorn or Ergo carriers. The Ergo at the time of writing this is on super sale.
Overall though your baby is very unlikely to be harmed by a gentle foot squeeze or touch from someone. Yes, people should keep their hands to themselves but I also think as humans we are naturally inclined to want to snuggle and take care of babies and that is a good instinct. I like to think the strangers are all parents that just miss the days when their kids were babies and they are getting a little joy by seeing our little ones. But don’t try to wake my sleeping baby…then my inner mean mama bear comes out. 🙂
Other baby tips that may be helpful:
3 Great Tips To Keep Your Baby’s Head From Getting Flat
How to Sterilize Pacifiers without Boiling Water
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You are so awesome. I used to FLIP OUT when someone went for either one of my kids. I seriously have no idea why anyone thinks it ok to touch someone else’s baby.
I absolutely can’t stand this!Once when i was wearing my oldest i had her in a carrier, this older lady comes up and jerks the top down. She was like she can’t breathe in there, My husband had to back me up before i went off on her.
Wow, she had crazy nerve! Luckily I haven’t had anyone do that.
Those are polite ways to keep people from touching when you don’t want them to. People should ask before they touch someone else’s child. Nice post hopefully it is read and understood.
Great tips. I cannot believe how rude people are to mommies with babies. People lose their minds and sense of decency. If they aren’t touching them, they’re giving unsolicited advice!It’s at the point where I don’t even want to go anywhere with my newborn. Hopefully I’ll get better at handling all the unwanted attention. :-/
My son was born 6 weeks early and was in the NICU so we were on quarantine for about 5 months before we even took him out. People who know me got the message when I posted on FB and dont touch him, but it is crazy how strangers ALWAYS seem to touch him! I like the sign idea and I just might use it. Sometimes I cant always tell they are going in to touch and I miss it, but then I feel guilty washing his hands and even his feet when they touch him. Still trying to keep him healthy and safe as he is so tiny!
Yes, you have every right to feel super protective with a preemie.
Preemie or not a parent has rights to tell people to fuck the hell off from touching their child/ren.
I could not imagine walking up to someone and touching their baby but an invasion of space. I love your sign ideas, that would totally be me!
I had no idea people would so readily just touch another person’s baby without permission. I bet keeping them close is a great idea but not always practical x
YES! This is one of my biggest irritates. We did Santa pictures for my oldest son and had to bring my youngest who was only 10 days. People wanted to touch him.
I think I have such a good attitude about it because I was probably a baby toucher before I had babies. I also used to ask people who were married when they were going to get pregnant. I cringe now how often I used to do it. I only did it because I wanted to get married and have kids so bad but now I realize how much I was infringing on personal business.
This hits so close to home with me. So many thought I was just being overprotective when really I just didn’t want strangers putting their hands all over my kids. This is such a great post!
Thank you! It really hits a nerve for new moms.
This was a constant problem with my daughter when she was a baby. People always wanted to touch her. I wasn’t shy about it. I just told them no.
That is so awkward when strangers walk up and want to touch your baby. These are some great tips!
I made this mistake long before I had kids and the mom freaked out. At the time I was so confused because I loved babies and was trying to be friendly. After having kids and realized why I didn’t want anyone touching mine, I finally understood. Sometimes people are just trying to be friendly but this is probably up there with touching a woman’s belly – just don’t do it! LOL
Me too! I was an offender so it gives me more patience with others. Man, I cringe at some of the stuff I used to do. 🙂
I’m not even a mom and I hate when strangers touch other peoples’ babies. I had a friend who absolutely hated it!
I love the cute “Do Not Touch” signs! If I had a baby, I think I would go that route. People around here can be so touchy.
The sign is perfect for me too. I am all about avoiding conflict.
As much as I love to gush over a baby, I would never think to just go up a touch them, especially if I don’t know the parents. So weird what strangers think is proper behavior.
These are very good ideas to keep strangers from touching the baby. I would go crazy when people wanted to pull my son’s cheeks all the time.
I’m yet to have a baby, but when I do, I definitely don’t want strangers to touch it! I would never dream of doing this to someone’s baby that I didn’t even know. These are some great tips for moms.
Omg!!!! People touching my daughter drove me nuts when she was itty bitty!!! I’m a quiet person so I would just end up grinding my teeth wishing I had the guts to scream at people lol…. people need to not touch babies that aren’t there lol….
I would never think of going inside someone’s space and touching their baby without asking first, but I do understand that there are cultural and generational issues that color our thinking about this. I think your approach – being kind, polite, and clear about your expectations is the best way to handle it.
I’m 37 weeks pregnant and women seem to be drawn to my belly and can’t seem to stop touching it; so I’m skeptical about how well #3 would work. (To be clear, if I actually know the woman, I don’t really mind her touching my belly, but strangers–or near-strangers–really need to back off.) I like the sign suggestion, though, and I’m curious as to how well it would work.
In the culture my husband and I live in, I’m required to spend 40 days inside the house after giving birth; so the baby will also be inside for 40 days. That will give baby a little time to build up some immunity at least.
That is so interesting that you are required to spend 40 days inside. Would love to hear the reasoning behind it. I don’t know if I would love it or go stir crazy. I love when other cultures really rally around new moms and celebrate a birth and help the mother recover.
They just believe that a woman needs 40 days to recover completely from giving birth; so by limiting her to the interior of the house (or maybe a porch/patio if one has such a thing), it forces her to not overdo it before she’s completely recovered.
The same thing was required after my miscarriage last year, and what drove me the most bonkers was not being able to be in charge of my own home. The dishes were cleaned and put away as someone else wanted them. The laundry was washed and dried as someone else wanted it. I think the week after those 40 days were up was the hardest I’ve worked on my house since moving in! (Fortunately, while a miscarriage is a little sudden, I’ve been training someone to do things how I want them to be done after the baby is born; so I’m hoping that these 40 days are better. I will also probably have both my mother and mother-in-law buzzing around for some amount of time, and they both have an idea of how I like my home run.)
Sounds like a good idea to give people a heads up before birth to show them how you like things done. I am sorry about your earlier loss. I wish you and your new baby the best!!
It would drive me stark raving mad to be confined to home for 40 days. Childbirth is a natural event, not a medical catastrophe, and the best way to recover even after a difficult or complicated birth is to be up and active as soon as possible, as any doctor would tell you. Not taking the baby outside doesn’t help its immune system to develop; if anything it makes it weaker. Colostrum and breast milk are what build up a newborn baby’s immunity; as long as the baby gets plenty of that nature will do the rest. I’ve lived in China and students I had who had had babies told me it was still the norm for new moms to have to stay in bed for up to a month after the birth; they hated it but they’re up against tradition and bossy mothers or mothers-in-law who believe they know best. One of my students said her mom didn’t allow her to use the computer, watch TV, or even read while she was in bed (she said it would be “bad for her eyes”), so she spent most of her time sleeping or trying to sleep and the only time she got to hold her baby was when she fed her. Her mom spent way more time with her baby in that first month than she did. Some cultural practices do more harm than good.
It must be so difficult to deal with traditional customs that you don’t agree with but your parents or caregivers insist upon. I also think from another angle that our system in the US pushes mothers out of the hospital too fast. I had a super difficult recovery from my twins c-section. Turns out I was allergic to the pain medicine and was getting sick every 10 minutes for 2 days (imagine throwing up every 10 mins trying not to use your stomach muscles that have just been sliced open) and they still wanted me to leave the hospital in the normal amount of recover time given by insurance. Plus our culture here in the US expects women to look like they never even had a baby very quickly after giving birth. No where seems to be perfect.
People who go about touching other people’s children actually think it’s cute and adorable.
In crowded area’s. Use a mosquito net (without deet) for your newborns on your stroller/wagon (no idea how you call it).
I don’t care if it is summer or winter. The little one is at least safe and never too hot. If you get rude comments on that on which you feel the urge to reply, simply explain that the general work way of a musquito net is as a proximity measure to prevent reaching a certain desired target…just wait for message to sink in. let them do the math…and if it is a nice woman /man/child who asks nicely you can always mention the flies in the grass/woods whatever. If it is a friend tell the truth that you dont like all strange hands on or near your little one who has a full agenda fighting of germs and stuff already as is.
Musquitonet worked for me, got some strange looks within a store but i dont give a d….
When I had my son I let everyone touch him and hold him. I wanted him to be a friendly Social person. He developed great immune system. He didn’t get sick a lot his first year of school, like many kids do. When he was a toddler I encouraged him to talk to strangers. Not to ever go with anyone, but to talk to and develop an instinct for people. He grew up to be one of the most friendly social people I know. He feels perfectly at ease with people of any background and race or social class. A local preacher did a podcast and interviewed my son.” Alex I’m amazed at how you can go up to anyone and start a conversation “. “Well, my mom taught me I should talk to strangers.” Alex said. To learn more about the safety of talking to strangers. Get the book “Protecting the Gift” by security expert. Gavin DeBecker.
I was changing my 2mo old son in a public bathroom and a lady came and touched my son’s face, like really wtf?! She was Hispanic&i know it’s their belief it’s bad luck not to touch a baby..not my problem!! Then if he’s in his car seat they come up and pull blankets&tge sunshade back..stop!!
Wow, these are great tips. I may definitely use the sign on the car seat idea. Thanks a bunch!
Cause a scene. No one should be touching your child without permission. My sister has a badge on her pram that says F*** OFF which stops people in their tracks & when I take her out I will not tolerate anyone coming in for a touch. I will tell them to read the sign & go away.