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Babies Quotes

Browse 329 quotes about Babies.

Babies Quotes

“And there I lie in these damned bandages for a week. And there he lies, swathed up too, like a little mummy. And never crying. But now I like raking him in my arms and looking at him. A lovely forehead, incredibly white, the eyebrows drawn very faintly in gold dust... Well, this was a funny time. (The big bowl of coffee in the morning with a pattern of red and blue flowers. I was always so thirsty.) But uneasy, uneasy... Ought a baby to be as pretty as this, as pale as this, as silent as this? The other babies yell from morning to night. Uneasy... When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them off you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them off there is not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease. And there he is, lying with a ticket tied around his wrist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease...”

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Book:Good Morning, Midnight
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“With regard to things such as independence, mental capabilities, and sexuality, a very old man is nothing but a gigantic infant with white hair and wrinkles.”

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Author:Mokokoma Mokhonoana
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“When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world. The waves of sound, heat and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe.”

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Author:Nikola Tesla
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“Death is like giving birth. Birth can be painful. Sometimes women die from giving birth. However, when the baby is born, all that pain (that was endured) vanishes in an instant. Love for that tiny baby makes one forget the pain, the fear. And as I’ve said before, love between mother and child is the highest experience, the closest to divine love. You might wonder about the parallel I’m making between birth and death. But I say to you, the fear and pain accompanying an awful death is over quickly. Beyond that portal one is suddenly in the light, in oneness and bliss…Just as a woman heals rapidly after childbirth and then is able to fall in love with her baby, those who pass over also are able to fall in love with a new life."-Kuan Yin (From "Oracle of Compassion: the Living Word of Kuan Yin”

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Book:Oracle of Compassion: The Living Word of Kuan Yin
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“She raised her hand, bony fingers spread. “Don’t worry. She is supposed to cry. Her life will never be the same. You can’t give her everything.” I realized what Rajima meant. Until that moment, I had been almost exclusively providing everything Krishna could want or need. I was her sole succor and haven. But her needs were changing. She would now need sustenance from the earth, from Mother Nature, from the world, or at least Whole Foods. She would need more than what I could give her from my own body. We”

Growing UpBabyLetting GoBabiesBaby Crying
Book:Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir
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“Marry, don't marry,' Auntie Aya says as we unfold layers of dough to make an apple strudel. Just don't have your babies unless it's absolutely necessary.' How do I know if it's necessary?' She stops and stares ahead, her hands gloved in flour. 'Ask yourself, Do I want a baby or do I want to make a cake? The answer will come to you like bells ringing.' She flickers her fingers in the air by her ear. 'For me, almost always, the answer was cake.”

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Book:The Language of Baklava: A Memoir
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“For a baby to thrive she or he has to be more than fed and kept clean. She or he needs to be held and to be engaged with as a living baby. This last thought might sound a bit mad. Of course a baby is alive. But if a baby receives only perfunctory care, if her or his needs for food and water and changing are met in a production-line manner, as happened for the many abandoned babies in the Romanian orphanes after Ceausescu was toppled, she or he may not thrive; she may die.”

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Book:Bodies
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“Chronic stress in infancy and early childhood has been identified as a major contributor to adult health problems. In 2009, Jack Shonkoff and colleagues published a major review in the Journal of the American Medical Association that stated that "adult disease prevention begins with reducing early toxic stress." Considering the state of American's health, this is something we should take quite seriously. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine (2013) noted the following: "For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other high-income countries. This disadvantage has been getting worse for three decades, especially among women. Not only are their lives shorter, but Americans also have a longstanding pattern of poorer health that is strikingly consistent and pervasive over the life course." One way we can improve the health of the next generation is to challenge the hegemony of the cry-it-out advocates. We need to stand by the others we serve as they make the decision to defy cultural norms and respond to their babies. The health of the next generation depends on it.”

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Book:Impact of Sleep Training and Cry it Out: Excerpt from The Science of Mother-Infant Sleep
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“Those baby-ghosts love to whisper; they love to hypnotize me every time I smell a newborn’s head or even look at Facebook posts of toddlers splashing in bathtubs and playing in pumpkin patches. But the truth is, those whispers are small echoes of a life that wasn’t supposed to be—a life I unknowingly abandoned when I stepped foot in that classroom and used my time to care for other people’s children. Those whispers taunt from some innate, ancestral, maybe even mystical place of wonder that, surely, I’ll never understand. What I do understand is the transformative value—how to use those voices to repair others and bring meaning to my life. For every student rocking in that blue chair, I have purpose.”

PurposeTeachingStudentsMotherhoodSelf DiscoveryMeaningEchoesBabiesInfertilityHysterectomy
Book:Burning Sage
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“When my friends began to have babies and I came to comprehend the heroic labor it takes to keep one alive, the constant exhausting tending of a being who can do nothing and demands everything, I realized that my mother had done all of these things for me before I remembered. I was fed; I was washed; I was clothed; I was taught to speak and given a thousand other things, over and over again, hourly, daily, for years. She gave me everything before she gave me nothing.”

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Book:The Faraway Nearby
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“Oblong cocooned little visitor, the baby shows her profile blindly in the shuddering flashes of color jerking from the Sony, the tiny stitchless seam of the closed eyelid aslant, lips bubbled forward beneath the whorled nose as if in delicate disdain, she knows she’s good. You can feel in the curve of the cranium she’s feminine, that shows from the first day. Through all this she has pushed to be here, in his lap, his hands, a real presence hardly weighing anything but alive. Fortune’s hostage, heart’s desire, a granddaughter. His. Another nail in his coffin. His.”

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Book:Rabbit is Rich
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“A husband, a wife and some kids is not a family. It’s a terribly vulnerable survival unit. I met a man in Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family. They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages and sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle to it, and say how pretty or how handsome it was. Wouldn’t you have loved to be that baby?”

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Book:A Man Without a Country
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“Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body. But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality. In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh. The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves. In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.”

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Book:Dragonfly in Amber
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“For my sake,” he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, “I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “Not for a dozen bairns. I’ve daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren—weans enough.” He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly. “But I’ve no life but you, Claire.” He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine. “I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one.”

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Book:The Fiery Cross
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“Strictly as a matter of taste, I do not like children. Small animals are adorable in the way my biology programs me to find large-eyed, small-skulled mammals adorable, and they can grow up into formidable or admirable creatures--cubs become bears, calves become elephants, fledglings become eagles. Babies lack language, which makes me bored and impatient, then turn into children, whose saccharine vocal emissions grate my nerves, and then turn into adult humans, the most monstrous of all animals.”

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Book:The Undocumented Americans
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“Self-reflection – based on experiences, principles and goals that we have gathered across our lifetime – allows us to course-correct. This is constantly required as we muddle along, gradually learning better ways for us to parent over time.”

ChildrenParentingMotherhoodPregnancyFatherhoodBabiesParenting QuotesParenting AdviceParenting ChildrenParenting Tips
Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“What science and parenting have in common… there is no such thing as ‘best’. We simply cannot be the best parent. It is not possible. Best cannot even be defined. What others may say is best today will change tomorrow to something quite different.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“It is common for new parents to feel guilty when their babies cry. But remember - it is not the parent's fault. The parent's job is to be responsive to their baby, and to help them feel loved and secure.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“Absolute laws of parenting do not exist. Each child is different, in personality, time, age, health and geography. They have different strengths and weaknesses for which we need nuanced responses. There is never one specific word, sentence or response that will always work. There are however, principles of parenting behaviour that we can rely on in most circumstances”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“Childhood is a time of discovery and learning. Play is vitally important for early child development. It allows them to express their creativity and learn to interact with other children. For them it is both work and relaxation. While children love exploring and we must give them enough time to play, many infants and toddlers also find reassurance in repetitive routines, and we need to build this stability into their day.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“Adolescence is a turbulent time of life, and parents are understandably concerned about their children. There is a fine line between wanting to know if your child is in trouble and respecting their privacy.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“If we are struggling at any stage of parenting, think about the atmosphere in the house that we are creating. Is it one of anxiety or anger? Disapproval or judgment? Show your child warmth, support, tolerance, encouragement and praise. Be fair to them, provide them with security, focus on giving them approval and acceptance for their differences. Imagine the atmosphere in the house with this abundance of these things. Your child will feel safe, loved and confident, moving into the world a whole and grounded being.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“To help our kids develop self-compassion, we need to retrain the way they see and speak to themselves - their inner voice. To do this, we might need to retrain our own inner voice, to be gentle with ourselves and accept the parenting decisions we have made. By being kind to ourselves, over time, our children will learn and build on their own self-compassion.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“When babies are very young, their behaviours are automatic and reflex driven. Only at 6-14 weeks old do they begin to become aware of the outside world. New babies are simply not aware of us, and we need to adjust our expectations around their behaviour. In other words, we won’t always be able to stop them crying, or make them calm, or get them to feed well.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“Despite saying that very young babies are primitive, it remains vital that we touch them, hold them, respond to them. One cannot just leave a baby on its own! Interacting with the baby is essential for them, not just in that moment. The development of the baby's senses requires stimulation. Vision will not develop well in the dark. Hearing will not develop in the absence of speaking and singing to them. It definitely matters to them, they just do not know who is touching and holding them.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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“The basics of being a good parent are the same as for being a good human. Arguably, our humanity is foremost about our capacity to stop and assess our behaviour as an individual, as a mother, as a father, as a friend, as a son or a daughter.”

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Book:What Do I Do Now? The basics of parenting babies ... without stress
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