Infant and Child Characters

[valtmy]

Hi! 🙂

So I am writing a supporting character who would grow from a baby to a child in my story. The growth of this character is crucial in driving the plot, highlighting the theme and developing the other characters so I don’t exactly have the option of deleting him or making him older. But I don’t have much experience with kids (youngest in my family here) so I’m hoping to get some advice.

OK, so my character starts out as a maybe three-month old infant that has to be smuggled out of somewhere as his guardian is on the run and needs to take him away secretly. My idea is to have him (the baby) be hidden inside a secret compartment of a large wooden container that can be carried on the shoulders. The container will be holding books on top of a false bottom (his guardian is moving around to escape under the guise of delivering books) and there will be breathing holes specially made.

Is this fine or does it just sound incredibly unsafe? Will it be suspending too much disbelief if I have the baby remain quiet for much of the escape by just saying that he is a deep sleeper? I will have him wake up and start crying at a rather inconvenient moment but before that his guardian will be running around and talking to other characters for quite a while so I need to make sure.

(I have mainly been browsing infant and child care websites to research on this but they don’t exactly cover my… rather specific questions. Am still trying to work out the proper age for things like teething and am wondering whether I should even bother with all these details since he’s technically only a supporting character.)

And this is only the first part of the story! Haha I know I am very out of my depth so I’ll be grateful if any of you can direct me to any resources which you think would be helpful for writing about the care and development of babies and children.

Thanks!

[Grace H.]

@valtmy I don’t know that much about babies either, but this sounds pretty plausible. It would also be an effective way of keeping readers on their toes, by making people think the baby is really a deep sleeper until the inconvenient moment… I think your “inconvenient moment” makes it sound realistic (because life isn’t perfect) and will make your future readers not hate you.

I don’t know of any specific sites, but I guess asking moms would be a good start, since you could get real specific information from someone you trust who has taken care of babies before.

It's g-h, 2-4-6-8 twice, three 9's
literatureforthelight.wordpress.com

[Rochellaine]

@valtmy Having the baby be a deep sleeper would definitely work.  When I was a baby, I slept something like 20 hours a day, and when relatives came over they wanted to see my eyes, so my dad would toss me in the air (gently, but he is very good at that) and talk to me, but I would never wake up. 🙂

My older brother, on the other hand, slept about 5 hours a day, and my mom hardly got any sleep when he was a baby.  So it goes both ways.

I have carried babies in lots of different things while playing with my sisters.  I think what you’re talking about sounds safe enough as long as there is lots of padding.  I saw a clip of a movie once that had a baby being carried in a basket to escape.  It was a comedy, and from what I could tell in the clip, the characters were having trouble getting the castle guards not to open the basket.  So it’s been done before, which means that someone thought it was plausible.  I’ve heard of similar instances with the Underground Railroad, too.  Sometimes they’ll put a little of some sleep-inducing herb or powder in the baby’s milk, but most people think that’s unhealthy for the baby, so it might not be a good idea.

Okay, here’s some general baby knowledge:

• Babies are healthier if they sleep on their stomachs.  They learn to crawl faster, and are just generally healthier, I think.  This is not a big thing for your story, but might help just so you can do description better.
• Babies can can start teething at 3 months, though the main teething happens when they are 6-12 months old.  The teething doesn’t just mean they chew on toys and clothes their caretakers give them.  They chew on everything.  I believe my older brother’s teeth marks may still be on one of my grandmother’s tables. 🙂
• Instead of touching with their hands, like adults do, to feel things, babies feel things with their tongues.  That means any new thing will be immediately thrust in their mouths.  It is not easy to keep this from happening, as my dad would be certain he kept his eyes on me all the time, but grass would still end up in my diaper.
• Speaking of which, babies are leaky, and can spit up, or diaper leak at any time.  You’ve got to keep your eyes open so you don’t get messy.  You’ve probably seen mothers with cloths or baby blankets over their shoulders when they hold the baby, and it’s for this reason.
• Babies can learn to walk anywhere from 9 months to 2 years old.  Usually it is around 1 year old that they start walking, though.
• Once they start walking, they learn to run very soon after, and are really fast so it is tiring to keep up with them.  Even when they’re crawling this can be a problem.  If your main characters are caring for the child, they will probably not have a lot of energy left at the end of the day.
• Babies usually say their first words around the age of 1, and can talk pretty fluently by the age of 2 to 2 1/2.  However, there will be a few things they say differently, (not just “wabbit” for “rabbit”) which if you make a few up, will make your child more realistic.  They sometimes become inside jokes among the family, too.  My little sister called my brother Jacob “Deetop” and we all still call him that on occasion, even though she is now 9 years old.  She pointed at a hole in a sock and said “uh-oh” in a really cute voice, and for about a year or so we called all holes “uh-ohs” (you’ve got an uh-oh in your skirt).  I read a book where someone’s cousin called escalators “escallitagors”.
• Babies are smarter than you think.  Even when they can’t talk fluently, they can usually understand everything you say.  You don’t really want to talk down to babies (though no one can resist using “baby talk” once in a while).  They learn things very quickly, since the fastest development of the brain happens between the ages of 0 and 6.

Anyway, that’s all I can come up with for now.  If you have any more questions, I’ve got 7 younger siblings, and several cousins, so quite a lot of experience with babies. 🙂  I hope this helps a little.

"Sylvester - Sylvester!"

[Rochellaine]

Wow!  That was a really long post! 🙂

"Sylvester - Sylvester!"

[PrincessFoo]

@valtmy My family did foster care for something like 13 years, and during those years there was never NOT a baby in our house. But we stopped five years ago, after a bad experience with the agency, so it’s been a while since I’ve done much with a baby.

That box does sound pretty unsafe. It’s wooden, so to make sure the baby doesn’t get jostled around, you would need to provide cushioning, like blankets. Then you would need to make sure none of the blankets covers his face, or he could suffocate. That would be hard to do with the box closed. However it could be done. I personally would be most concerned about the books. If the false bottom broke, and all those books fell on top of him, that would be a big problem. Really, all this stuff is dangerous, but is they need to smuggle him out of somewhere, then it is better to be dangerous than dead.

About him waking up… If the guardian does any running, jumping, or lots of sudden moments, I think a baby would wake up, even if he was a deep sleeper. However, if he walked steadily, I think it’s definitely plausible the baby would remain asleep.

[Charis]

My mom told me that I used to sleep 12 hour nights from the day I came home from the hospital, so it is completely possible that this child could be sleeping soundly enough the whole time. I would just also mention cushioning inside the false bottom for the baby or else it may not seem as believable, especially if there is a lot of running and/or talking above a normal speaking voice. (Also, no matter what time period you’re writing in, healers and apothecaries probably would have something to make the child sleep longer and deeper if the guardian went in asking about something for their ailing child–chamomile or herbs or something along those lines probably)

I would worry, though, about a child under a stack of books unless the wooden crate was reinforced with something. Also, books are heavy and a 3 month old child isn’t light either. (Maybe you already have this part figured out) How many people are carrying the crate? If it’s only one then is there some sort of counter leverage to make it possible for them to carry such a load? Is it on a wagon? On wheels like a suitcase? Just strapping it to your back is going to get tiresome after  10 minutes or so.

Last thing (for now), it makes sense for you to want to get all the details right for a minor character. A writing class I took once said, “treat each character as though they think they are the main protagonist.” It makes sense if you think about it. If you were living in a story right now and your bff was the MC, would you know it? Or would you think it was about you? It might sound a little self centered, but humans are addicted to stories. They know the concept of stories so well that they sometimes begin to see themselves in them as the MC in the story of everyday life.

I hope this helped. Let me know if anything didn’t make sense and I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.

A Very Tookish Hobbit (a.k.a. Fool of a Took)

[SeekJustice]

@valtmy

Putting a baby in a box, even well padded, does sound potentially dangerous. However, if what they’re running away from is super bad, the ends probably justify the means in this case. It would likely be a risk worth taking.

A  few things worth mentioning to you.

• Babies all have different personalities. Some people just see “cute baby” but some babies are super outgoing, some are super serious  (there’s a three year old at our church who is reallly cute and serious) some are loud, some aren’t. So you definitely need to give your baby as much personality as the grownn up characters
• Babies are much smarter thann we give them credit for, even when they are unable to speak,  they use body language (and their lungs) very effectively
• They need engagement. Telling stories, just talking to them about the groceries, singing.
• They aren’t alwayss angels. Seriously, they are not.
• They are usually dirty too.
• Everything is an adventure.

I hope that’s helpful. I have four younger siblings and am around young children a lot of the time, so if you have any questions let  me know!

INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.

[valtmy]

@gh24682468999

@rochellaine

@princessfoo

@charisetter

@seekjustice

Thanks so much guys! All your tips and suggestions have been very helpful. I will take note of them and let you know if I have any other questions.

The wooden box itself is actually a specially designed “backpack” used for carrying valuable items that people don’t want to just leave on a cart. The whole thing should thus be sturdy enough such that the false bottom will not collapse. In this scenario the valuables being transported are books (+ a baby). But I think I can get away with saying that the wooden carrier is used for fragile stuff like porcelain too and mention having cushioning inside. That should make everything more plausible. 🙂

[Jenna Terese]

@valtmy Wow, Rochellaine covered it pretty well, lol.

Some babies might be deep sleepers, but they frequently wake up in the middle of the night and cry for attention (I have two younger siblings), so I don’t know if saying the baby was a deep sleeper is enough (it’s also been a while since my siblings were babies). I like the idea of a false bottom in the box though.

Jane Maree has a blog post about writing child characters. I don’t know how old the child in your story will become, but here’s the link anyway just in case: https://janemareeauthor.com.au/2017/10/dos-and-donts-for-young-characters/

I'm a Kapeefer 'TIL WE'RE OLD AND GREY!
www.jennaterese.com

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