Baby Trivia
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160 free Baby trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This baby trivia quiz is about babies themselves: how newborns are built and behave, what happens in the first year, and the surprisingly recent history of the things we use to feed, carry, soothe and dress them. It is written for adults, from new parents to grandparents to anyone who wants to look clever at a christening. If you are planning a party and want games rather than facts, our baby shower quiz is the one to use. The easy end covers what most people half-know: how many baby teeth there are, what the soft spot is called, which company makes Pampers, why the pacifier is a dummy in Britain and a binky in America. Then it gets into the specifics: what an Apgar score actually measures, why a newborn's first stool is dark green, which people have the highest twin rate on Earth, who the real Gerber Baby was, when the first baby monitor and the first stroller were built, and how many nonuplets have ever survived birth. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entry for the topic before publishing, and the sentence that supports it is stored with each question.
30 of 160 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Leaf-shedding trees share which formal name with a child's baby teeth?
Deciduous
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.
Q 02Which of a baby's first set of teeth usually erupt first?
Lower front incisors
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.
Q 03Humans get baby teeth and then adult teeth, but which animal works through six sets of chewing teeth?
Elephant
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.
Q 04Around what age does teething typically begin?
Six months
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.
Q 05Which symptom do doctors say is wrongly blamed on teething?
A high fever
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.
Q 06What is the informal name for the membranous gap in a baby's skull?
Soft spot
'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.
Q 07What shape is the anterior fontanelle at the top front of a baby's head?
Diamond
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.
Q 08A sunken fontanelle on a baby's head is a classic warning sign of what?
Dehydration
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.
Q 09The word 'infant' comes from a Latin word meaning what?
Unspeaking
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.
Q 10Why do adults have fewer bones than babies?
Some fuse together
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.
Q 11Martin Couney's incubators saved premature babies; who paid for them?
Sideshow crowds
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.
Q 12By its first birthday, a typical baby's birth weight has usually done what?
Tripled
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.
Q 13What usually happens to a newborn's weight in the first week?
It drops a little
Q 21What is the fine, soft hair sometimes covering a newborn's body called?
Lanugo
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.
Q 22A 'stork bite' on a newborn baby is a common type of what?
A birthmark
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.
Q 23What is a newborn's very first stool called?
Meconium
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.
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.
Q 14What colour is a newborn's skin often in the moments right after birth?
Grayish to dusky blue
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.
Q 15Which measurement averages about 35 cm in a full-term newborn?
Head circumference
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.
Q 16Once a baby learns to walk, what is it usually called instead?
Toddler
A toddler is named for 'toddling', the short, unsteady steps of a child who has only just found its feet.
Q 17What is the name of the instinctive behaviour by which a newborn seeks out the nipple?
Rooting
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.
Q 18What is the name for the waxy white coating on a newborn's skin?
Vernix
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.
Q 19In the Latin name of a newborn's white skin coating, what does 'caseosa' mean?
Cheesy
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.
Q 20Despite its greasy feel, the waxy coating on a newborn's skin is about 80% what?
Water
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.
Q 24What colour is a newborn's first stool usually?
Very dark olive green
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.
Q 25What is the thick early milk produced in the first days after birth called?
Colostrum
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.
Q 26What is 'witch's milk', a harmless oddity seen in some newborn babies?
Milk from the baby's own breasts
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.
Q 27According to the World Health Organization, what should begin within the first hour of a baby's life?
Breastfeeding
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.
Q 28Secretory IgA in breast milk is what kind of molecule?
Antibody
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.
Q 29Which hormone is the main driver of milk production?
Prolactin
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.
Q 30A woman who breastfeeds another person's child is called what?
A wet nurse
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.