Things Only a Baby Can Get Away With...

Written by Leila Airey for her blog, Learning to Cope.

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Since becoming a mum I’ve noticed that there’s certain things that you can only get away with whilst being a baby. A lot of these do relate to bodily functions:

Congratulations. Only as a baby can you be congratulated and cheered for your burps or poos! Regularly I find myself saying, “well done” and “good girl” as my daughter belches. I’ve also found myself opening a filled nappy with, “wow, that’s a big one baby!” Yet in contrast my 14 year old step son is regularly told to cover his mouth and say excuse me when he burps!
Simultaneously Pooing. Would you ever sit on the toilet whilst eating your breakfast, lunch or dinner? No. Yet quite happily my daughter will be feeding and during her feed she’ll fill her nappy, it’s usually at these times that it’s a pretty stinky one too. Nice!
Nose picking. Nose picking is gross at the best of times but seen as my little one is too young to do it herself, cannot blow her nose and nothing really gets the little snotty bogeys out, I have to do it for her. That’s right, part of my new mum initiation was to pick bogeys out of her nose! You know you’re a mum when your picking someone else’s nose!
Napping absolutely anywhere. I’ve always been a fan of a good nana nap, especially as a student and in the days of partying and hangovers. Only as an adult you can only ever nap at home when time allows you to. Babies though can decide they’re tired and be rocked off the sleep anywhere! In your arms, in the car, in the pram, in their Moses basket, in their cot. They just have to decide they’re tired and need sleep and you’ll sort the rest…even if it does to take forever to get them to succumb to the land of nod.
Eat anywhere. Just like sleep, when a baby is hungry they can feed. As a mum your always armed with bottles or boobs to give them that much needed milk. I’ve fed my baby in the supermarket, in the car, in cafes, friends houses, at the doctors surgery and during baby yoga!
Just let rip. Like I said a lot of these relate to bodily functions and as a baby you can just let rip and trump to your hearts content. No matter how loud or smelly the fart, it’s deemed socially acceptable for a babe to let out a toot!
Interrupt. I can proudly say that from day one my daughter has been very alert and it wasn’t long before she started exploring the noises she could make. She regularly “chats” away with her cooeing noises and babbles at you whenever she feels the desire to. So if I’m mid conversation with someone, she’ll quite happily dive in with her own language noises, interrupting and distracting us from our own conversation to interact with her.
Sucking. Whether fingers, toes, a thumb or a dummy, it’s cute that a baby sucks for comfort. As an adult if I were to suck my thumb or a dummy it would considered downright weird!
Being chubby or dinky. Whether it’s that a baby has rolls and creases in between their chubby arms or thighs or whether it’s that they’re a dainty dinky little thing-they’re cute. As adults we’re soon to criticise peoples’ physique and there’s such a stigma attached to body image. As a baby it doesn’t matter, if they’re little and dainty they’re cute, if they’re bigger and chubby they’re cute, as long as they’re healthy no one minds.
Crying to get their own way. Babies only form of communication, a cry. That could be a quick moan or whinge or a full on sob, but it’s they’re only way have informing us that they need something and they keep it up until said thing is delivered to them. If I were to start balling my eyes out because I needed a drink, food or the toilet, I don’t think it would be very socially accepted!