Is He a Good Baby? (And Other Things That Drive Me Round the Twist)

"Is he a good baby?"

If I had a pound for every time a new parent has been asked that question, I could retire tomorrow.

And I know (I genuinely know) that it comes from a lovely place. People are trying to connect, trying to show interest, trying to say something warm to someone who's clearly exhausted and running on love and very little else. The intention is kind.

But the question itself? It's nonsense. And here's why.

What Even Is a Good Baby?

Think about what the question is really asking. Is your baby sleeping long stretches? Feeding on a schedule? Not crying too much? Basically, is your baby behaving in a way that's convenient for the adults around them?

Because the implication is obvious, isn't it. If you've got a "good" baby, you've got a compliant one. And if you haven't, if your baby wakes frequently, feeds constantly, wants to be held all the time, well. You've got a difficult one. Maybe even a naughty one.

Your newborn baby. Naughty.

I'll give you a moment with that.

Babies Are Not Good or Bad. They're Just Babies.

Your baby is not manipulating you. They are not testing you. They are not making a rod for your back, controlling you, or conspiring to ruin your sleep out of spite.

Your baby is a tiny, brand new human who, because of the size of the human head and a rather long evolutionary journey, is born significantly earlier in their development than most mammals. A foal can walk within hours. Your newborn cannot lift their own head. They are, in every sense, not yet ready for the world on their own.

What your baby wants, what they need, what every cell in their body is reaching for…is you. Your warmth, your heartbeat, your smell, your voice. The sounds and sensations that surrounded them for nine months. When a baby is held skin to skin on their mother's chest, something extraordinary happens: the mother's body temperature adjusts to regulate the baby's. Stress hormones in both of them drop. The microbiome begins to develop. Milk production is supported. The baby hears the heartbeat they have known since before they were born.

They are not two separate beings yet, really. In Swahili there is a word - Mama Toto - which means mother-baby. Not mother and baby. Mother-baby. One thing. And I find that so beautiful, because it captures something that our culture has largely forgotten.

What Your Baby Is Actually Doing When They Cry

Your baby has no words. They have no way to tap you on the shoulder and say "excuse me, I'm a bit cold" or "I think I'm hungry" or "I just need to be close to you for a minute."

What they have is communication, first through movement, then through sound. If you watch closely, you'll see the cues before the crying starts. A rooting mouth, a stirring, a little restlessness. Those are your baby talking to you. If those cues get missed (which they will sometimes, because you're human and exhausted and learning) crying is the next step.

That is not naughtiness. That is the only language they have.

They are telling you they need one of a very short list of things: warmth, closeness, food, a clean nappy, safety. That's it. That's the whole list. They are not asking for the unreasonable. They are asking for the most basic and fundamental things a person can need, and they are asking in the only way they know how.

Let's Talk About Sleep (And Completely Unrealistic Expectations)

Here is something worth knowing. A newborn's sleep cycle is around 45 minutes. That's it. That's biologically normal. It changes slowly over time, but in those early weeks, if your baby is stirring every 45 minutes, they are not broken and they are not naughty. They are just a newborn, doing what newborns do.

Often you can help link those sleep cycles together. But not always. And that's okay.

Now. The "sleeping through the night" thing. Because this one really needs addressing.

The research that originally defined "sleeping through the night" for babies defined it as sleeping from midnight to 5am. Five hours. That was it.

Somewhere along the way, in UK culture particularly, that quietly became 7pm to 7am. Twelve hours. For a newborn.

And so we have a whole generation of parents measuring themselves against an expectation that was never real, feeling like they're failing, wondering what they're doing wrong, convinced that other people's babies are doing something their baby won't.

They're not. We just somehow got here, with completely unrealistic expectations, and nobody told us.

And the Feeding

Breast milk is designed to be easy for a tiny baby to digest. It passes through their system quickly. Which means they need more of it, more often. Even formula-fed babies need feeding a minimum of eight times in every 24 hours in the newborn period.

Your baby feeding constantly is not a sign that something is wrong. It is not a sign that your milk isn't good enough, or that your baby is greedy, or that they're "using you as a dummy." It is a sign that your baby needs feeding. Which is, genuinely, exactly what they're supposed to do.

So What Should We Ask Instead?

Next time you're talking to someone with a new baby and you want to show you care (and please do show you care, because new parents need that) maybe try something different.

How are you doing? Not the baby. You.

Is there anything you need?

Can I bring you food?

You're doing a brilliant job.

Because here's the truth of it. There are no bad babies. There are no naughty babies. There are no good babies, really, in the sense the question means.

There are just babies. Small, dependent, communicating as best they can, and parents doing their absolute best to figure it all out, usually while exhausted and usually, without nearly enough support.

Be kind to yourself. Your baby isn't good or bad.

And neither are you.

If you're pregnant and want to feel genuinely prepared for the newborn days, not just birth, but everything that comes after, get in touch. I'd love to help.