Why do we do it our kids?

Imagine you go to a new city with your family. You are having a great time with them. All of a sudden a stranger comes and picks you up. You are bewildered because you don’t know this person. You try to tell them to leave you alone but they don’t understand your language. Instead they laugh at you as your protests grow louder. You aren’t comfortable because they are holding you too tight. You don’t know what to do so you desperately look for your family so they would help you out. But the person holding you just won’t let go.

How does this situation sound? Creepy? Scary? Weird?

Then why do we do it our kids?

I’m not saying we should bubblewrap them and keep them at home on the highest shelf. But we must be considerate about how everything is new and strange for them. Including extended family/friends. Just because you are comfortable with a person doesn’t mean your baby has to be. For your baby it’s a new person and he/she will obviously be apprehensive about being picked up by someone they don’t know. Give them time to get comfortable with that new person. If they are okay being picked up by them, great! If not, don’t force it. You guest won’t turn into a sausage or grow horns if they don’t get to hold the baby for long.

On that note I also want to bring up a thing that really bothers me- People getting offended when the baby cries in their arms and wants to come back to the parents. My husband and I took care of my baby through sleepless nights, I fed her (sometimes for hours at a stretch), rocked her to sleep countless times, took care of her every need. OF COURSE she’s going to come to us for comfort. It’s not her being spoilt, it’s her knowing where her needs are met. If you haven’t put in the hours, how do you expect her to just be as comfortable with you as she is with us (the parents)?

Desi people are especially ridiculous about it. They think kids are toys without any emotions. That babies must be like dolls you can just carry around and play with on your whim. These lil humans have their own feelings and moods. Sometimes they are playful and won’t mind being carried around and other times they just want to be held by their parents and watch from far. THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Don’t annoy the parents by telling them they are spoiling their child by comforting them. Letting them “cry it out” all the time is not teaching them not to cry, it’s teaching them that they can’t trust you to be there for them.

Holding, playing and just being around babies have to be some of the most therapeutic things ever but let’s not make it hard on them just so we can feel good.