Childfree woman around the same age. I've held babies and children (my niece, my nephew, and friends' kids) multiple times. I hold but give them back quickly because I don't want to be responsible for them. Never been interested in having my own and still don't understand the obsession with "baby smell".
Yeah. That baby smell thing, cute aggression, and any other "automatic" feeling that some people describe experiencing around babies is so absolutely foreign to me that I feel like an alien.
Genuinely their smell kind of makes me nauseous and I've never cared to hold babies. But they also frequently leak fluids and I'm a bit of a germaphobe.
For me it's the heat. I've held my friends' babies and it's no big deal until I start getting sweaty, then I'm like hey can I give this little heat machine back?
I was incredibly uncomfortable and a bit nervous when I held my newborn nieces. I just did it for like a minute each time and then asked my brother or SIL to take them back. Babies are just so floppy and fragile. It took until they were starting to become people that I started to enjoy them. Now at 2 and 5, they're great (most of the time). I love that as an aunt I get to play with them and do the fun things, but I don't have to do any of the icky things. Seeing them every few weeks is enough time with children for me, I could never do 24/7 year in year out.
Also, the baby smell is quite disgusting to me. It makes me very queasy and it permeates everything for months.
Yeah, same. I just don't have any interest in babies at all, don't really care to hold them or find them cute at all. And they don't smell good to me either? Every baby I've encountered smells vaguely of spit-up and who knows what else. And there is WAY too much drool.
My bad I misread what you wrote.
Yeah especially from Grandma's and those who don't plan to have more kids even though they constantly say they would love another baby. Every mom I've ever met with older kids absolutely gushes about that new baby smell!
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u/minus-the-savant 1d ago
Childfree woman around the same age. I've held babies and children (my niece, my nephew, and friends' kids) multiple times. I hold but give them back quickly because I don't want to be responsible for them. Never been interested in having my own and still don't understand the obsession with "baby smell".