I’m not a parent, but I was a little curious about baby development and exposure to strangers’ germs and whether it’s a concern for children under three months.
A coworker of mine stopped by with her baby after being on maternal leave since just before Christmas. Since I work in a place that’s almost entirely female, most of the ladies came up, said hi, and oohed and ahhhed at the baby. Although it was very cute, the baby was less than a month old and still had that “boiled baby” look, and it got me thinking about the youngest babies I had seen growing up.
My family friends never really took the babies anywhere until they were at least a few months old, and the last time I had seen any of their kids in their home, it was after they were at least a month old. I can’t recall having any friends or relatives that took their babies with them for extended shopping trips or errands until they were at least five or six months old, but I do remember having seen them in the home when they were younger than that. IIRC, the major reasoning was that younger babies shouldn’t be exposed to so many outside germs so early and that they had such a long sleep schedule that it was easier to keep them at home until they started sleeping a bit less often.
However, I do notice with what is to me alarming frequency that there are people taking babies that are obviously less than two months old out for shopping trips and overly long errands. Is this becoming more common? Has my circle of family friends sheltered me from people who did this regularly when I was younger?
How young is too young to take a baby with you for running errands and going shopping or to social events? Parents: do you recall around what time you decided it was fine to take them on errands and to places where they’d be exposed to a lot of different people (and their germs)?
I took my babies out from about 2 weeks on. Horrified my mother! But no one ever had any ill effects from it. I think it’s more common than it used to be.
I took my babies out from a couple of weeks. That doesn’t mean that I let every coughing, hacking, sniffling person cuddle them, but I certainly took them out into the world. They were fine. I think I waited to take them to church for 3 or 4 weeks–church is 3 hours long!
You shouldn’t do that with an immunity-compromised or preemie baby, of course, but an ordinary healthy baby doesn’t suffer from it at all. Small babies are very convenient companions, they’re more hassle later on.
It may have just been a cultural thing back then with keeping babies indoors for the first couple of months. We don’t really have anybody in my family having babies currently, so I am not regularly exposed to small children that I am acquainted with.
Life goes on, newborn or not. I remember going to my son’s soccer game on Thursday, giving birth on Saturday, and the following Thursday showing up with a newborn at the soccer game!
No, I didn’t let sniffling, snotty kids paw my newborn. But I don’t wrap newborns in a germ-free bubble and seal them in the house for months, either. Although with my winter baby, we didn’t go out nearly as much.
Phooey. I took my kids out when they were days old. Ivylad was in the Navy, my family was in Florida while I was in SC, so if I had errands to run, the kids came with me.
Healthy babies, especially if they’re breast fed, should be fine. After all, they need to build up resistance somehow! Besides, when they’re toddlers they’ll be playing in the dirt and sharing popsicles with the other toddler down the street.
My son was born Dec 6 (many years ago), we took him to a Christmas party … so say 2 - 2 1/2 weeks. A new baby is a GREAT way to attact women BTW (I’m the dad), at the very time you aren’t interested in meeting them.
I probably wouldn’t hesitate to take a baby a week old out. I’d try to avoid strangers touching the baby, but, really, I’ve never had problem with strangers trying to touch my babies, or even getting what I consider “too close” up in their faces.
If your baby is breastfed, it has your antibodies. Even with big brothers coming home from school, that great viral breeding ground, and getting ALL up in my youngest’s face and hugging and touching and kissing him, I don’t remember him catching much, just little colds, and not when a new new baby.
I don’t know why there’s been such a cultural shift. Possibly a shift in advice doctors give parents.
Yep. What else are you going to do? You need to go to Target and the grocery store.
For me, the issue wasn’t the age of the baby - it was carrying baby and walking after giving birth.
As for stopping by work, I think its a requirement. I’m not the biggest baby worshipper in the world and only peek at new babies brought into the office and coo something about them being “beautiful” - but even I feel cheated out of something if someone comes back from maternity leave without having done the victory lap with baby. Plus, as a Mom who did the victory lap, its rewarding, and as a mom, it didn’t expose them to any more germs than all the doctor’s trips, grocery store trips, well meaning shirttail relative visits, etc we took.
(Daycare wouldn’t take them until eight weeks though).
I flew from Fairbanks, Alaska to Nashville, Tennessee with a 4 hour layover in Dallas with a 3 week old baby. No ill effects, except on me. I was exhausted.
My daughter was born November 28 and I remember taking her on a trip to the mall to buy a birthday gift for my husband. His birthday is December 11, so she had to be less than two weeks old. I think the only problem was logistics, as it was the first time I’d ever tried carting around a kid.
I always feel sorry for the babies that I assume are under those blankets covering up strollers or draped over a baby carrier. I’ve seen this even on relatively warm days and wondered why on earth you’d need to do this. I can understand putting a hat on the kid if it’s cold, but why cover them up entirely?
I rarely even put an actual outfit on my July baby. I had a million cute onesies in all kinds of patterns. He was a portable little thing, easily popped in and out of the carseat, and into my sling. I am not big on strollers and never used them a lot, except for evening walks for exercise.
What is this magical immunological shift that occurs between weeks 6 and 8? I think the absence of new babies in public is more a case of the mother is tired and keeping errands to a minimum. Sometimes life intervenes and you have to run to the grocery store, but you’re probably not looking to prolong the experience. As far as the sleeping thing goes, car trips are still the best way to put my kids to sleep. Sleeping newborns are extra portable thanks to the baby bucket seats you can tote them around in.
I took my baby to a bloggers’ meet-up in a bar/restaurant when she was 6weeks old. I was just about to come off maternity leave and was stir crazy. I was breastfeeding and didn’t have much pump stash, so where I went the baby tagged along. She’s a healthy happy 2yr old now, and she mixes a mean margarita!
I was too scared to take my newborn anywhere for more than twenty minutes until she was about six weeks old. Fortunately my parents stayed with us for three weeks after I gave birth so that made life much easier. My husband basically handled all errands and housework until DD was about eight weeks old.
That was actually quite a blissful interlude. All I really had to do was breastfeed her, change her, give her the occasional bath and sleep when she did.
My kid was born on Thursday. We went mall-walking on Sunday. That was probably a dangerous thing to do, judging by how she loves to shop. But health-wise, no sweat.
I know a women who stopped at an Applebee’s on her way home from the hospital after having her baby. She apparently ***really * ** wanted a cheeseburger.
We took Whatsit Jr. out everywhere when he was a newborn: favorite restaurants, walks in the park, grandma’s house, friends’ houses, and so forth.
Then when he was about three and a half weeks old, he came down with a cold. It got pretty nasty. We took him to the doctor. She said, yep, it’s a virus. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better. We took him back home. Three days later, I found myself on the phone to the after-hours hospital hotline describing the sound of my son’s breathing to the nurse. She had me hold up the phone to his chest. She told us, get in the car and go to the nearest hospital, but take a cell phone, because if he stops breathing on the way, the ambulance can get to you faster than you can get to them.
About an hour later he was admitted to the NICU at Children’s Hospital, and we spent the next three weeks there. Here’s what he looked like.
And for the record, he was exclusively breastfed, was not a preemie, and was not in day care. It just happened. The final verdict was RSV that led to an opportunistic bacterial pneumonia, the bacteria in question being MRSA.
After having had that experience, I basically didn’t leave the house for the first month after MiniWhatsit was born. And I almost went stir-crazy, and after some contemplation realized that what happened to us was a freak occurrence and that most newborn babies don’t wind up in the NICU on a respirator even if their parents do go out to restaurants and the library with them. I was much more laissez-faire with Whatsit the Youngest.
That being said, I would advise strongly that you ask people to wash their hands before touching a newborn baby, that you avoid contact with anyone who is obviously sick, and that you avoid hospitals and doctors’ offices as much as possible.
My daughter was born on Sunday night. We had her out on Wednesday afternoon, and took her to dinner on Saturday. (She slept through everything.)
It never crossed my mind that it would be bad to take her out. There’s just as many germs in a house as there are anywhere else. And if there’s germs outside, you’re gonna bring 'em back with you.