Babies

1Watch

Picking her up

Watch where the hands go before anything else happens.

2The idea

What a baby cannot do

Under one: for the first few months they cannot hold their own head up. They cannot roll away from anything. They cannot tell you what is wrong. They cannot keep themselves warm or cool. They put everything in their mouth. A baby depends on you for every single thing, including which way their head is facing.

Normal: crying, lots of it. Sleeping in short stretches. Milk coming back up after a feed. Hiccups. Jumping at a loud noise. Not normal: floppy, very hard to wake, hot to the touch, blue around the lips, breathing that looks like hard work, a rash that does not fade when you press a glass on it. Any of those: ring the parents, and if it looks serious, 911 first. Call, then do what they tell you.

3The idea

Safe holding

1. Wash your hands.
2. One hand under the head and neck, the other under the bottom.
3. Lift slowly and bring the baby in to your chest.
4. Head in the crook of your elbow, or on your shoulder with your hand spread behind it.
5. Sit down to hold for long. Never carry a baby on the stairs with anything else in your hands.
6. Never leave a baby on anything they could roll off: a bed, a sofa, a changing table. Not for one second.

The head is supported by your hand, every time, until the parent tells you this baby holds it alone. Even then, your hand stays close. A baby’s head is heavy and their neck is not ready, and that is the one fact about babies that never gets a night off.

4Look

Two holds

Either is fine. What both have in common is the hand.

5The idea

Never shake a baby, and what to do instead

A crying baby can make anyone feel like they are about to snap. Shaking a baby, even for a second, even just to make them stop, can kill them or damage their brain for life. It is not a risk. It is what happens. If you feel it rising: put the baby down on their back in the cot, walk out, shut the door, breathe for two minutes, and ring the parents. A crying baby in a cot is safe. A shaken baby is not.

Josh had a baby screaming for forty minutes. Nothing worked. He felt hot behind the eyes. He put her on her back in the cot, walked to the kitchen and rang the mum: she has been crying forty minutes, I have checked everything, can you talk me through it. The mum came home twenty minutes early. That is the job done right, not a failure.

6Decide

You are carrying the baby and the doorbell goes. Where do you put her?

7Say it

The words for putting her down

Then do it. The words are for you as much as for the baby.

8Find them

Which of these are normal for a baby, and not a reason to ring anyone?

Tap the ones that count.

9Your turn

What is safe for this age

The answer is fewer than you think. An empty cot, next badge, is the rule.

10Do it

Before you leave this page