[1] A lot of people these days want to hold baby Tyler. And I don’t blame them. He’s cute and cuddly, smiles and squeals, makes cooing and razzing sounds–why wouldn’t they want to hold him? But I am struggling with not always comfortable with people holding him.

When Tyler was just a newborn, not that many people asked to hold him but when people did they were so careful, washed their hands and sat down. Now he’s almost six months old and people will simply walk up and try to snatch him away or ask to hold him a lot. I don’t know if most new moms or just younger moms feel this way…maybe it’s just me! If a fifty year old mother of four walks up to me and as we talk reaches for little Tyler, I don’t even hesitate to let her hold him. But if a loud excitable junior higher jumps around saying, “Please can I hold him!!!!” I’m not very willing to oblige. But in the next moment a polite 10 year old boy says, “May I hold the baby?” and I let him. I think that it has to do with the person asking and how they act to me. If they are loud and seem kind of forward or spastic and crazy I’m hesitant. If they ignore me and always just say “hi” to Tyler but never even talk to me and reach for him, I hold him tighter. I don’t always feel weird about it just usually with people I don’t know.

I know that as Tyler grows up something like this will go away because I’ll just get used to him being around all kinds of people. In the meantime this issue seems to be an obstacle because people keep asking and I keep feeling uncomfortable.

[2] I was thinking about it today, because with Camp Compass going on there always seems to be someone wanting to hold the baby. And what I realized is that if I know someone I feel comfortable because I’m confident that the person is looking out for him, they aren’t yelling in his ears or being too rough with him or going to drop him. I know enough about them to know that he’s fine with them. I always like it when our friends hold him and play with him. Brad held Tyler for the first time yesterday. Not because we weren’t comfortable, he just never had and it was sweet because we could tell that Tyler liked him.

I would think that this is a good and even instinctive response for a mom to have. Maybe it helps him know who it’s okay to be with, I mean I don’t want Tyler to get used to just anyone and going off with strangers. And I think that Bobby and I have a good feel of who Tyler is comfortable with. I can tell pretty easily if Tyler would even like being held by the person anyway. But that is where the problem is–I don’t want to offend people by saying, “I’m really not comfortable…” and I don’t want him to be happy only with us either. Is this something I’ll grow out of or a legitimate concern?