160 Fun Facts About Baby

Leaf-shedding trees share which formal name with a child's baby teeth?

Deciduous comes from the Latin for 'to fall off', which fits both: the trees lose their leaves, and all 20 baby teeth fall out during childhood to make way for 32 adult ones.

Which of a baby's first set of teeth usually erupt first?

Lower front incisors usually break through first, as a pair; the same spot on the lower gum is where the rare baby born with a tooth already showing most often has it.

Humans get baby teeth and then adult teeth, but which animal works through six sets of chewing teeth?

Elephants wear through six sets of chewing teeth, each new one moving forward from the back of the jaw to push out the old; the last has to serve for the rest of its life.

Around what age does teething typically begin?

Six months is typical, but the range is wide: some babies start before four months, and one who is still toothless on its first birthday is usually perfectly normal.

Which symptom do doctors say is wrongly blamed on teething?

A high fever is not a teething symptom: a tooth coming through may nudge the temperature up slightly, but a true fever points to an infection that happens to strike at the same age.

What is the informal name for the membranous gap in a baby's skull?

'Soft spot' is the everyday name for a fontanelle, a membrane-covered gap between a newborn's skull bones that lets the head flex during birth and the brain grow.

What shape is the anterior fontanelle at the top front of a baby's head?

Diamond-shaped and the larger of the two main gaps, it sits where the frontal and parietal bones meet; parents are often startled to see it throb in time with the baby's heartbeat, which is normal.

A sunken fontanelle on a baby's head is a classic warning sign of what?

Dehydration makes the gap dip inward because the body is short of fluid; seen with a dry mouth or crying without tears, it is a reason to call the doctor straight away.

The word 'infant' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

Unspeaking is the literal sense of Latin infans, from in- ('not') and fari ('to speak'); the same root gave us 'infantry', at first the young foot soldiers too junior for the cavalry.

Why do adults have fewer bones than babies?

Some fuse together as a child grows, taking roughly 270 to 300 at birth down to 206; starting in separate pieces lets the skull squeeze through the birth canal and leaves the brain room to grow.

Martin Couney's incubators saved premature babies; who paid for them?

Sideshow crowds paid 25 cents each to see his 'incubator babies' at Coney Island and other fairgrounds, and those admission fees covered the care, so parents were never charged.

By its first birthday, a typical baby's birth weight has usually done what?

Tripled is the rule of thumb, after a doubling by about five months; steady gain is one of the clearest signs that a baby is healthy and feeding well, which is why every weigh-in goes on a growth chart.

What usually happens to a newborn's weight in the first week?

It drops a little as the newborn loses fluid and passes its first stools before feeding gets going; most babies are back to their birth weight within two to three weeks.

What colour is a newborn's skin often in the moments right after birth?

Grayish to dusky blue, or a dusky purple, is common in the first moments because the blood is not yet fully oxygenated; the skin reddens once breathing gets going, though hands and feet can stay bluish for days.

Which measurement averages about 35 cm in a full-term newborn?

Head circumference averages about 35 cm at birth, and doctors go on measuring it for years because the skull grows only as fast as the brain inside, so a head growing too fast or too slowly is an early warning.

Once a baby learns to walk, what is it usually called instead?

A toddler is named for 'toddling', the short, unsteady steps of a child who has only just found its feet.

What is the name of the instinctive behaviour by which a newborn seeks out the nipple?

The rooting reflex: stroke a newborn's cheek and it turns toward the touch with an open mouth; it fades by about four months, while the sucking reflex does the actual feeding.

What is the name for the waxy white coating on a newborn's skin?

Vernix builds up in the last months of pregnancy and shields the fetus's skin from its long soak in amniotic fluid, rather like a barrier cream; left on after birth, it goes on protecting the newborn's skin.

In the Latin name of a newborn's white skin coating, what does 'caseosa' mean?

Cheesy is the meaning of caseosa, from Latin caseus, 'cheese', which also gave us 'casein', the main protein in milk; the name fits the coating's thick, curd-like look.

Despite its greasy feel, the waxy coating on a newborn's skin is about 80% what?

Water makes up about 80% of the coating, held inside dead skin cells, while the fats that give it the waxy feel are only about a tenth.

What is the fine, soft hair sometimes covering a newborn's body called?

Lanugo covers the fetus in the womb, and most of it falls out before birth into the amniotic fluid, which the baby then swallows; babies born early are the likeliest to arrive still wearing it.

A 'stork bite' on a newborn baby is a common type of what?

A birthmark: a stork bite is a flat pink patch of stretched blood vessels, often on the back of the neck or the eyelids, that flushes darker when the baby cries; those on the face usually fade within two years.

What is a newborn's very first stool called?

Meconium forms in the womb from swallowed amniotic fluid and mucus, not food, which is why it appears before the baby has digested any milk; its name comes from the Greek for poppy juice.

What colour is a newborn's first stool usually?

Very dark olive green, almost black, is the colour of the first stool, which is made in the womb before any milk is digested; within days of feeding, the stools turn yellow.

What is the thick early milk produced in the first days after birth called?

Colostrum is thick, golden and so concentrated that a newborn needs only about a teaspoonful of it at each feed in the first day or so.

What is 'witch's milk', a harmless oddity seen in some newborn babies?

Milk from the baby's own breasts can leak for a few days or weeks after birth, in boys as well as girls: it is an after-effect of the mother's pregnancy hormones and clears up by itself.

According to the World Health Organization, what should begin within the first hour of a baby's life?

Breastfeeding should start within the first hour, says the WHO, with the baby held skin-to-skin straight after birth; the first bath, by contrast, is best put off for at least a day.

Secretory IgA in breast milk is what kind of molecule?

An antibody: secretory IgA is the main one in breast milk, and it coats the lining of the baby's gut, guarding it until the baby's own immune system is up to the job.

Which hormone is the main driver of milk production?

Prolactin tells the breast to make milk, and its level rises each time the baby suckles, so supply follows demand; oxytocin, the tempting wrong answer here, only squeezes the milk out.

A woman who breastfeeds another person's child is called what?

A wet nurse was a paid professional for centuries, from ancient Rome to Renaissance Europe; the trade faded once bottle-feeding and reliable milk substitutes gave mothers a workable alternative.

Which legendary twins were suckled by a wolf after being abandoned as babies?

Romulus and Remus, Rome's legendary founders, were cast into the Tiber and rescued by the wolf; on the famous bronze Capitoline Wolf, though, the suckling twins were only added in the Renaissance.

What baby product did German chemist Justus von Liebig pioneer in the 1860s?

Infant formula began with Liebig's mix of cow's milk, wheat flour, malt flour and potassium bicarbonate, and it caught on so fast that rival brands were quick to follow.

Which company was the target of a famous 1977 boycott over its baby-milk marketing?

Nestlé was accused of pushing its baby milk on mothers in poorer countries, where it often could not be mixed safely and babies fell ill; the boycott helped bring about the 1981 international code on marketing breast-milk substitutes.

What is the gradual move from milk to solid food called?

Weaning comes from Old English wenian, 'to accustom': the baby gets used to solid food while milk feeds carry on, and some parents skip the spoon-fed purée and let the baby feed itself finger foods from the start.

Gerber began with Dorothy Gerber doing what by hand to her baby's vegetables?

Straining them for baby Sally was slow, hard work, so the family cannery in Fremont, Michigan, took the job on; strained peas, prunes, carrots and spinach were in the shops by 1928.

What is the term for a baby positioned bottom- or feet-first before birth?

Breech means bottom- or feet-first; if the baby has not turned by about 36 weeks, doctors may try to turn it head-down by pressing on the mother's belly, and failing that most are delivered by caesarean.

Who was the real baby behind the Gerber Baby sketch?

Ann Turner Cook was a neighbour's baby when artist Dorothy Hope Smith sketched her in charcoal; she grew up to teach English and write mystery novels, while rumour made the unnamed baby a future film star.

How was the Gerber Baby image chosen in 1928?

A company contest in 1928 settled it: the winner was a simple charcoal sketch of a baby the artist knew, and the same face has appeared on the firm's packaging ever since.

In the memory aid spelled from the Apgar score's name, what does the P stand for?

Pulse joins Appearance, Grimace, Activity and Respiration as the five checks; the test is really named after its inventor, Virginia Apgar, and the handy acronym was made to fit her surname afterwards.

Who invented the Apgar score in 1952?

An anesthesiologist, Virginia Apgar had trained as a surgeon until her chief steered her into the young field of anesthesia; she devised her quick delivery-room check at Columbia in 1952.

A newborn's Apgar score is a mark out of what?

10 is the maximum, but few babies get it: almost all lose a point in the first minutes for skin colour, and any score of seven or more counts as normal.

Which infant response makes a baby fling its arms out after a sudden loss of support?

The Moro reflex ends with the arms pulled back in and usually a cry; doctors check it by letting the baby's supported head drop back a little, because the feeling of falling sets it off.

Which bone is most often broken during birth?

Collarbone breaks are the most common birth fracture, and a startle can give one away: a healthy newborn flings out both arms, so one that stays put suggests a break or damaged shoulder nerves.

Which part of the brain suppresses primitive newborn reflexes as a child grows?

Frontal lobes mature and switch off primitive reflexes such as grasping and sucking, which is why these 'frontal release signs' can reappear in adults whose frontal lobes are damaged by dementia or injury.

Which psychologist first studied object permanence in infants?

Jean Piaget hid a toy under a blanket to see whether babies would search for it, and concluded the idea takes hold at about eight months; later looking-time experiments found signs of it months earlier.

Which baby game relies on infants lacking object permanence?

Peekaboo is thought to work because a young baby treats a hidden face as truly gone, so its return is a real surprise; in the sensorimotor stage, from birth to about two, babies slowly learn that hidden things still exist.

Around what age do babies typically say their first recognisable words?

12 months is typical, and the word is usually 'mama' or 'dada': babies babble those syllables for months first, and their parents' delight at hearing them is what teaches the baby they mean something.

What kind of babbling is 'da da da'?

Reduplicated babbling repeats one consonant-vowel syllable, as in 'ba ba ba'; it is sound practice rather than speech, so an early 'dada' carries no meaning until the baby learns to link it to a person.

Newborns sleep in short bursts day and night until they develop what?

A body clock takes about two months to start working: babies are born without a daily rhythm, so until then a newborn has no idea that night is the time for sleeping.

What is the single most effective way to lower a baby's risk of SIDS?

Laying it on its back to sleep is the advice that matters most: babies who sleep on their backs are far less likely to die suddenly, a finding that launched the 'Back to Sleep' campaigns of the 1990s.

SIDS is also known by which informal name?

Cot death is the older everyday name; the diagnosis is given only when a full investigation, including an autopsy, finds no cause for the sudden death of a baby under one.

Do baby monitors prevent SIDS?

No evidence they do: the American Academy of Pediatrics advises against using home cardiorespiratory monitors as a SIDS strategy, warning they can give parents a false sense of security.

What name is given to long bouts of unexplained crying in an otherwise healthy young baby?

Colic is the label for crying that lasts more than three hours a day, at least three days a week, with no obvious cause; all crying peaks at about six weeks, and colic usually fades by three or four months.

Most newborns turn yellow because their livers are slow to clear which pigment?

Bilirubin is the yellow by-product of worn-out red blood cells; a newborn's liver takes a while to get up to speed, so some jaundice shows in most babies and usually clears by itself within weeks.

An Essex nurse found jaundiced babies improved after she did what?

Wheeled them into the sun: Sister Ward believed in fresh air for her charges, and when doctors at Rochford saw a baby's skin fade wherever sunlight had reached it, they went on to treat jaundice with lamps.

Which diet-treated disorder was the first target of newborn heel-prick blood screening?

Phenylketonuria (PKU) came first: Robert Guthrie's 1960s test on a spot of heel blood finds it within days of birth, early enough for a special diet to prevent the brain damage it would otherwise cause.

Newborns are routinely given a shot of which nutrient to prevent bleeding disorders?

Vitamin K: babies are born with low stores, breast milk contains little and their gut bacteria have not yet begun making it, so one injection at birth prevents vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

Which umbilical cord vessel carries oxygen-rich blood to the baby?

Vein: the single umbilical vein carries oxygen-rich blood from the placenta to the baby, and the cord's two arteries carry used blood back, the reverse of the usual pattern in the body.

Leaving the placenta attached until the cord separates on its own is called what?

Lotus birth, or umbilical nonseverance, leaves the placenta attached until the cord dries and drops off on its own after several days; the UK's Royal College of Obstetricians has warned of infection risk.

What is the substance cushioning the blood vessels inside the umbilical cord called?

Wharton's jelly is named after Thomas Wharton, the English anatomist who described it in 1656; when the cord meets cooler air after birth the jelly collapses around the vessels and works as a natural clamp.

Identical twins develop from how many fertilised eggs?

One: a single fertilised egg splits into two embryos early in development, which is why identical twins are genetically almost identical and the same sex; fraternal twins grow from two separate eggs.

Which people have the highest rate of twinning in the world?

The Yoruba of south-west Nigeria have some 45 to 50 sets of twins per 1,000 births, and the town of Igbo-Ora is nicknamed the twin capital of the world; one unproven theory credits a local yam.

Besides fertility treatment, which trend lifted US twin births after 1980?

Older mothers: women in their thirties are more likely to conceive twins without any treatment, and the CDC found later motherhood explained part of the 76% rise in the US twin birth rate from 1980 to 2009.

An embryo splitting late, about two weeks after conception, is the usual explanation for which twins?

Conjoined twins: an early split leaves two separate embryos, but one that starts after about day 13 stops before it is complete; a rival theory says two embryos fuse instead.

Which type of twinning seems to happen at random rather than run in families?

Monozygotic (identical) twinning appears to happen at random, at a fairly constant rate worldwide; a family history of fraternal twins does raise the odds, via an inherited tendency to release two eggs.

What is the term for a baby born from a pregnancy with only one fetus?

Singleton is first recorded in 1876 as a whist player's word for a lone card of its suit; only later was it extended to a baby born alone rather than as a twin or other multiple.

What is the word for eight babies born from one pregnancy?

Octuplets: when America's first set arrived in Houston in 1998, a mortgage company gave the family a six-bedroom house and an army of volunteers helped feed and care for the babies.

The first quintuplets known to survive infancy were born in which country in 1934?

Canada: Ontario made the Dionne sisters wards of the Crown and put them on show at 'Quintland', where about three million visitors watched them play behind a one-way screen.

The McCaughey septuplets, the first set known to survive infancy, were born in 1997 in which Midwestern state?

Iowa: after the seven were born in Des Moines, donors gave the McCaugheys a new house and a van, and the state offered each child a free place at its public universities.

Mali flew Halima Cissé to which country, where she had nine babies in 2021?

Morocco: doctors had counted seven babies, so the government flew her to a Casablanca clinic for specialist care, where nine were born; Guinness lists them as the most children from one birth to survive.

Nadya Suleman, nicknamed 'Octomom', conceived her 2009 babies through which fertility procedure?

IVF: her doctor transferred far more embryos at once than guidelines allowed, and California's medical board revoked his licence in 2011.

Roughly how often do quintuplets occur naturally?

1 in 55 million births is the figure usually quoted for quintuplets conceived without treatment; Hellin's rule of thumb, about 1 in 89 for twins and 1 in 89 squared for triplets, lands in the same range.

Roughly how many babies were born worldwide in 2023?

130 million, near enough: the UN counts about 132 million births in 2023, some 360,000 a day, down from a peak of about 146 million in 2012 as birth rates fall.

Delivery of the placenta is which stage of labour?

Third: the placenta follows the baby, which is why it is called the afterbirth; midwives often give an injection to speed this stage and reduce bleeding.

The Latin verb caedere, a possible root of 'caesarean', means what?

To cut: 'caesarean' may come from Latin caedere (past participle caesus) rather than from Julius Caesar's own birth; his mother Aurelia lived on for decades, when the operation was fatal to mothers.

US guidelines say a scheduled caesarean before 39 weeks requires what?

Medical reason: US obstetricians' guidance rules out planned caesareans and inductions before 39 weeks without one, because babies born even a little early have more health problems; a mature lung test alone does not count.

What do very premature babies' lungs lack that keeps the air sacs from collapsing?

Surfactant is a slippery film of fats and proteins that keeps the air sacs open; babies born before their lungs make enough develop respiratory distress syndrome, now treated by delivering surfactant straight into the airway.

Doctors in Colombia had mothers carry premature babies skin-to-skin, a method named after which animal?

Kangaroo care began in Bogotá, where two paediatricians used a mother's body heat in place of scarce incubators; WHO now advises starting it straight after birth for small and premature babies.

Which US president's premature baby son died at two days old, spurring research into newborn lung disease?

John F. Kennedy: his son Patrick, born early in August 1963, was rushed to a Boston children's hospital and put in a high-pressure oxygen chamber, but died after 39 hours.

Marion Donovan made her first waterproof diaper cover by cutting up which household item?

A shower curtain made the prototype; her finished 'Boater' used parachute cloth and snaps in place of safety pins, and when manufacturers turned it down she made it herself, selling it at Saks Fifth Avenue from 1949.

Which company makes Pampers?

Procter & Gamble began test-marketing Pampers in 1961; rival Kimberly-Clark answered in the 1970s by scrapping its Kimbies brand and launching Huggies in its place.

Pampers inventor Victor Mills tired of changing diapers for which relative?

Grandchild: Mills disliked the chore so much that he set fellow researchers to work on a better disposable; he is also credited with the production concept for Pringles.

What is a diaper called in British and Australian English?

Nappy, probably a shortening of 'napkin'; cloth versions are made from cotton, hemp, bamboo or microfibre and washed for reuse.

What is the most common skin disorder seen in infants?

Diaper rash, an irritation caused by moisture, friction and contact with urine and stool, is most often seen late in the first year and may flare when a baby starts on solid food.

Which mineral did Johnson & Johnson drop from its US baby powder in 2020?

Talc: facing lawsuits claiming its powder was tainted with asbestos and caused cancer, Johnson & Johnson stopped selling the talc version in North America in May 2020 and kept a cornstarch one on sale.

What is a pacifier called in Britain and Australia?

Dummy means an imitation or stand-in, as in a shop-window dummy; the baby's kind stands in for the nipple, soothing a baby that wants to suck but does not need feeding.

Which part of a pacifier stops a baby swallowing it?

The shield, the broad plate between teat and handle, is too wide to be swallowed; US rules test it by pulling it against a small opening and require at least two ventilation holes in it.

Which nursery word began around 1935 as a New York company's trademark?

Binky was the brand name of the Binky Baby Products Company's pacifiers; dictionaries still list it as a trademark, though American parents now use it for any pacifier.

What did 19th-century American babies suck on before rubber pacifiers?

Sugar-teats were a spoonful of sugar tied in a twist of cloth; the idea survives in hospitals, where a little sugar solution on a pacifier is used to ease a newborn's pain during a heel prick.

The 'perambulator', or pram, takes its name from a Latin verb meaning what?

To walk about: Latin perambulare gave English 'perambulate', and a perambulator was at first a person out walking; the baby carriage took the name in the 1850s and was soon clipped to 'pram'.

What was Kent's 1733 baby carriage intended to be pulled by?

A goat, or a small pony: Kent's shell-shaped carriage had a harness for an animal rather than handles for a person, and the Duke of Devonshire commissioned it for his children.

Umbrella stroller inventor Owen Maclaren earlier designed the undercarriage of which wartime aircraft?

Spitfire: Maclaren drew on his aircraft know-how in 1965 for a light aluminium buggy that folded like an umbrella, after his daughter complained about flying with a heavy pram and her baby.

What is a stroller called in British English?

Pushchair: Britons keep 'pram', short for perambulator, for the carriage a young baby lies flat in, so the upright seat an older child rides in needed a word of its own; many now just say buggy.

The word 'crib' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Manger: Old English cribb was a fodder trough for cattle; the barred bed for a child took the name in the 1600s, probably because the word was so often used of the manger where the infant Jesus was laid.

Which once-common crib design was banned from sale in the United States in 2011?

Drop-side cribs were banned because the moving rail could break or come loose and leave a gap that trapped a baby; US rules also cap the space between slats at 2 3/8 inches to keep small heads out.

Engineer Richard Belanger's spill-proof sippy cup, invented for his young son, was licensed to which company?

Playtex licensed the design after Belanger, tired of mopping up his son's spills, built a prototype from Tupperware pieces and a valve mouthpiece; for a few years he sold the cups from his own house.

Most baby-walker injuries treated in US emergency rooms happen in which way?

Falling down stairs caused about three-quarters of the 230,000 walker injuries seen in US emergency rooms from 1990 to 2014; newer walkers must be too wide for doorways or brake at a step's edge.

Do baby walkers help babies learn to walk sooner?

No, they may delay it: a 2002 BMJ study of 190 babies tied each 24 hours of walker use to standing and walking alone three to four days later, and paediatricians want wheeled walkers banned.

Which infant video brand did Disney own from 2001 to 2013?

Baby Einstein: Disney bought the company in 2001; after a complaint to regulators it dropped the word 'educational' from its marketing, and in 2009 it offered refunds on videos that had not made babies any smarter.

Which company's 'Baby Shark' video became the most-viewed on YouTube in 2020?

Pinkfong's 'Baby Shark Dance' overtook 'Despacito' in November 2020, a year after baseball's Washington Nationals took up the song as a rally anthem on their way to winning the World Series.

The company behind the viral 2016 'Baby Shark' video is based in which country?

South Korea: a Seoul company's 2016 video made the song a global hit, but the tune is an old campfire chant; in 2021 a Seoul court ruled that the company's version rested on oral tradition, not on anyone's copyright.

Which composer's 1868 'Wiegenlied' is the tune now known simply as his 'Lullaby'?

Brahms wrote it for his friend Bertha Faber on the birth of her second son, and hid in the music a song she used to sing to him in her youth, when he had been in love with her.

The word for a cradle song was first written as 'lulley' and what?

By: in the 1560s 'lulley by' joined 'lullay', a soothing refrain in old nursery songs, to a little word 'by' that dictionaries explain in different ways; the noun 'lullaby' followed in the 1580s.

The 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' tune, which Mozart only borrowed for variations, comes from a song in which language?

French: 'Ah! vous dirai-je, maman' was first published in 1761, and the same tune now carries the alphabet song and 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep' as well as Jane Taylor's 1806 poem 'The Star'.

Ancient Greek and Roman votive statuettes show babies wrapped how?

In swaddling clothes: the figurines show infants bound tightly in strips of cloth, which were meant to keep a newborn warm and were thought to make its limbs grow straight.

Cradle cap is a baby's form of the condition behind which adult scalp complaint?

Dandruff in adults is often a mild seborrhoeic dermatitis, the same flaky rash of oily skin as cradle cap; the baby version is not catching or a sign of poor hygiene, and usually clears by itself within a few months.

Which generation was born straight after the post-war baby boom?

Generation X followed the boom: US births jumped to 3.4 million in 1946, stayed above four million a year from 1954 to 1964 and then fell, which is why the next generation was first nicknamed the 'baby busters'.

The 'shower' in 'baby shower' was first a heap of gifts bestowed on whom?

A bride-to-be: the word is recorded by 1904 for the gifts friends heaped on a bride, and only later for the party itself; one popular tale has the presents tumbling from an opened parasol.

Traditionally, a baby shower was given only for which child?

The first: by tradition the shower marked a family's first baby only, and only women were invited; both customs have loosened, and a smaller party for a later baby now goes by the name 'sprinkle'.

When a newborn looks to one side, the arm on that side straightens in a pose nicknamed after which sport?

Fencing: in the tonic neck reflex the arm on the side the baby faces stretches out while the other bends, like a fencer's stance; it fades within about half a year and is thought to help link hand and eye.

Where in New York were premature babies in incubators once exhibited to paying crowds as a sideshow?

Coney Island hosted Martin Couney's 'Infantorium', where visitors paid 25 cents to look and parents were never charged for the care. He is credited with saving more than 6,500 premature babies.

In a 1927 Time magazine chart of US department stores, which colour did most recommend for boys?

Pink was the choice of six of the ten big stores in Time's chart, with four backing blue for boys. The pairing familiar today was not dominant across the United States until the 1950s.

Which country flew a pregnant woman to its Antarctic base in 1977 for the continent's first birth?

Argentina airlifted Silvia Morella de Palma, seven months pregnant, to Esperanza Base, where her son Emilio arrived in January 1978. At least ten more children were later born at the base.

Which Star Trek actor directed Three Men and a Baby, the biggest US box-office hit of 1987?

Leonard Nimoy, the Enterprise's Vulcan first officer, steered Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson through the comedy, which out-earned Fatal Attraction in American cinemas.

Which Dr. Seuss book was written after his editor bet $50 that he couldn't use only 50 words?

Green Eggs and Ham won the wager with publisher Bennett Cerf, after its author mapped out the tiny vocabulary with charts and checklists.

Which girl's name took off after Daryl Hannah's mermaid picked it from a street sign in Splash?

Madison was almost unknown as a first name before 1985, yet by 2001 it was the second most popular name given to American girls.

Which animal is Sophie, the rubber teething toy that babies have been chewing on since the 1960s?

A giraffe she is, and her name comes from her launch date: 25 May is the feast day of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat.

Which Game of Thrones title entered the US top 1,000 names for baby girls in 2014?

Khaleesi, a title of Daenerys Targaryen, has stayed on birth certificates since. In 2024 the UK passport office declined a six-year-old Khaleesi's application, citing a Warner Bros. trademark.

A judge in which country made a girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii a ward of court?

New Zealand's Judge Rob Murfitt said the name embarrassed the nine-year-old, and noted that officials had already blocked names such as Yeah Detroit and Keenan Got Lucy.

Which 1947 picture book did the New York Public Library keep off its shelves until 1972?

Goodnight Moon was disliked by Anne Carroll Moore, the library's retired but still powerful children's librarian, and an internal review called it 'unbearably sentimental'. It was stocked on its 25th anniversary.

Which boy's name ranked first in the United States in every year but one from 1954 to 1998?

Michael slipped only in 1960, when David edged ahead, and it did not drop out of the American top five until 2011.

The girl's name Wendy owes its British popularity to which stage play that opened in 1904?

Peter Pan's Wendy Darling is said to be named after little Margaret Henley, who called playwright J. M. Barrie her 'fwendy-wendy'.

Which girl's name did Gulliver's Travels author Jonathan Swift invent for a poem written in 1713?

Vanessa blends 'Van', from the surname of his pupil Esther Vanhomrigh, with 'Essa', a pet form of Esther. A genus of butterflies later borrowed the name.

Which fruit did Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin choose as the name of their daughter, born in 2004?

Apple Martin was born in London in May 2004. When her brother arrived two years later, the Coldplay singer and the actress named him Moses.

Which rock musician named his four children Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva?

Frank Zappa's eldest, Moon Unit, gave him his biggest American hit at 14, delivering the 'valleyspeak' monologue on his 1982 single Valley Girl.

Which doctor's 1946 guide Baby and Child Care told parents 'You know more than you think you do'?

Benjamin Spock was the first paediatrician to study psychoanalysis to understand children's needs, and his reassuring manual had sold more than 50 million copies by 1998.

Which author's studio hole punch inspired the eaten-through pages of The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Eric Carle first pitched a bookworm called Willi, but his editor Ann Beneduce suggested that a caterpillar would make a more likeable hero.

Which Dorothy Kunhardt book, the first 'touch and feel' title, has sandpaper for 'Daddy's scratchy face'?

Pat the Bunny also asks babies to stroke a patch of fake rabbit fur, try on 'Mummy's ring' and gaze into a mirror, and it has been a steady American bestseller since it appeared.

In Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, what does Max find waiting for him, 'still hot'?

His supper is there in his room even though he was sent to bed without it, which critics read as proof that his mother loves him after all.

Which girl's name was number one for newborns in the United States every year from 1970 to 1984?

Jennifer reached the top in the same year that Love Story, with Ali MacGraw as Jennifer Cavalleri, arrived in cinemas. The name has since fallen out of the American top 100.

Which Nickelodeon cartoon stars babies Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster and twins Phil and Lil?

Rugrats launched in August 1991 as one of the channel's first three 'Nicktoons', turning the babies' everyday experiences into grand adventures of the imagination.

Which member of the Simpson family turned out to have shot Mr. Burns in the 1995 cliffhanger?

Maggie fired by accident: Mr. Burns tried to take her lollipop, quite literally candy from a baby, and his gun slipped out of its holster into her hands.

Which Pixar film's baby, Jack-Jack, seems powerless until a kidnap attempt reveals his shapeshifting abilities?

The Incredibles lets the Parr family believe he is the only one of them without powers, until the villain Syndrome tries to carry him off.

Which actor voices the suit-wearing infant in The Boss Baby, based on Marla Frazee's picture book?

Alec Baldwin plays him as a pint-sized executive who is really a secret agent in the war between babies and puppies for adults' love.

Which action star voiced baby Mikey's wisecracking thoughts in the 1989 comedy Look Who's Talking?

Bruce Willis is heard only by the audience, never by John Travolta or Kirstie Alley, and the film went on to take $297 million worldwide.

What is the real name of the Mandalorian character whom fans nicknamed Baby Yoda?

Grogu is 50 years old when the series begins but still looks like an infant, because his species, the same as Yoda's, matures so slowly.

Which 1991 Nirvana album cover shows a naked baby swimming towards a dollar bill on a fishhook?

Nevermind's swimmer was four-month-old Spencer Elden, and Kurt Cobain said the idea came to him while he was watching a television programme about underwater births.

In the 1938 Cary Grant comedy Bringing Up Baby, what kind of animal is Baby?

A leopard from Brazil is sent to Katharine Hepburn's heiress by her brother. On set a tame one named Nissa played the part while her trainer stood off-screen with a whip.

In which 1994 comedy does Arnold Schwarzenegger play a scientist who becomes pregnant?

Junior has his character, Alex Hesse, carry a baby with the help of a newly developed drug called Expectane, with Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson co-starring.

Which BBC children's series begins and ends each episode with a baby's face shining inside the sun?

Teletubbies gave the Sun Baby role to Jess Smith in the original series, and her rising acts as a wake-up call for Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po.

Which drug did Queen Victoria take during childbirth in 1853, helping to make pain relief in labour respectable?

Chloroform was given to her by physician John Snow for the birth of her eighth child, Leopold, when many doctors and the Church of England thought it unethical.

Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World, arrived in 1587 at which vanished colony?

Roanoke was empty when her grandfather, governor John White, came back from a supply trip to England three years after her birth, and the colonists' fate is still a mystery.

The 'Baby on Board' car sign craze of 1985 grew from a version first spotted in which European country?

Germany is where Patricia Bradley of Massachusetts found the sign. It sold slowly until she gained a business partner who had been rattled by aggressive drivers while taking his baby nephew home.

Which fastener, patented by Walter Hunt in 1849, went on to hold generations of cloth diapers closed?

Safety pin rights earned its inventor only $400: he sold the patent, repaid a $15 debt to a friend, and the buyer went on to make millions.

The makers of the Baby Ruth candy bar claimed it honoured the late daughter of which US president?

Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth had died 17 years before the bar got its name in 1921, just as the fame of baseball star Babe Ruth was on the rise.

Kewpie dolls, which began as Rose O'Neill's 1909 magazine cartoons, are named after which Roman god?

Cupid gave the baby-faced figures both their name and their look; O'Neill called them little round fairies whose one idea is to teach people to be merry and kind.

A tiny plastic baby is traditionally hidden inside which Mardi Gras treat from New Orleans?

King cake's hidden baby is said to bring luck to whoever finds it, along with a duty: buying next year's cake or hosting the next Mardi Gras party.

Rescuers in Midland, Texas, spent 58 hours in 1987 freeing 18-month-old 'Baby Jessica' from what?

A well casing only eight inches wide held her about 22 feet down in her aunt's backyard, and all three big television networks carried the rescue live.

Which pigment, deposited in the iris after birth, turns some babies' blue eyes brown?

Melanin is absent from the front layer of the iris when many white babies are born, so their eyes look blue through scattered light until enough of it builds up.

Which volunteer programme took Ann Moore to Togo, where mothers' slings inspired her Snugli baby carrier?

Peace Corps service in the 1960s took her to crowded markets where she noticed that she never heard babies crying, because they rode in slings close to their mothers.

In the word 'midwife', first recorded around 1300, the opening 'mid' is an old preposition meaning what?

With is the meaning, so a midwife is literally the woman who is with the mother at the birth. This compound is the only place where the old preposition survives.

Which word for a newborn's first outfit of clothes and linen originally meant the box it came in?

Layette reached English in 1839, by which time the name had slipped from the container to the linen packed inside it.

Which novelist's 1849 book Shirley established what had been a surname as a girl's first name?

Charlotte Brontë's heroine explains that her parents had been saving the family surname for a son. Child star Shirley Temple carried the name to its peak in the 1930s.

Which Austrian ethologist argued that a 'baby schema' of cute features triggers adults' urge to nurture?

Konrad Lorenz, widely known for his work on imprinting in geese, named the pattern Kindchenschema: features that make a creature look cute and release the wish to care for it.

Which American psychologist wrote in 1890 that a baby feels the world as 'one great blooming, buzzing confusion'?

William James pictured the newborn as 'assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once', a line from chapter 13 of his Principles of Psychology.

Which behaviourist designed the 'air crib', a temperature-controlled, glass-fronted box-bed for babies?

B. F. Skinner described it in Ladies' Home Journal as 'Baby in a Box', with a photo of his daughter Deborah pressed against the glass, and the echo of laboratory animal boxes hurt its sales.

In John B. Watson's 'Little Albert' experiment, an 11-month-old baby was conditioned to fear which animal?

A white rat was paired with the clang of a hammer on a steel bar each time he touched it, until the mere sight of the animal made him cry and crawl away.

A baby 'born with a caul', once a sailors' charm against drowning, wears part of which membrane?

Amniotic sac remnants were so prized as protection from drowning that medieval women sold them to sailors for large sums. A baby born inside the whole unbroken sac is 'en caul'.

Which 1984 film's dream sequence introduced the idea behind the Muppet Babies cartoon?

The Muppets Take Manhattan reached cinemas two months before the cartoon began on CBS, where the nursery version of the gang ran until 1991.

Baby incubators brought to a Paris maternity hospital in 1881 copied a device for hatching what?

Poultry incubators gave obstetrician Stéphane Tarnier the idea for his 'couveuse', a wooden box with a glass lid, and infant deaths at the hospital fell by more than a quarter in three years.