I’ve heard people say they want to smell a newborns head. Is that normal?

Yes! Not just newborns, all babies!!! :-D

Yes. My family and friends all smelled my babies’ heads.

I’m not sure if it’s “normal” but it’s pretty common. I lump it into the same category as men who are WAY too into women’s feet. Whatever floats their boats I guess.

Yes, babies heads smell very nice. Similar to cat tummies.

There are few things as endearing as the scent of the crook of the neck of a newborn. Their new sweat glands are sweet smelling from only having mother’s milk.

It’s like a maternal instinct I think! And when I smell that baby head it makes me really want one. Have you noticed animals with their babies and how they are always sniffing them? I think it’s like a way to make sure everything is good they are normal and healthy. And with humans, since we are a ‘it takes a village’ kind of species, it’s like a way to keep us reproducing and checking the babies health. That’s my scientific take on baby head sniffin.

Well….I would find it odd if someone said, “Hey! Can I smell your baby’s head?!” I would probably stab them. (Post partum is weird like that.)

What it evokes for me is after a warm bath you have a warm baby, wrapped up a safe and cozy in soft blankies, nursing, and it’s just almost an instinct to drop your own head to nuzzle the top of the baby’s head. It’s very peaceful and happy.

I always thought that inhaling baby scent was just the result of planting smooches on a baby’s top. I never realized there is a recognized cult of baby sniffing. And before it was banned, I always found baby scent (absent of course any diaper effects) to be about baby or talcum powder.

And baby shampoo.

They just smell clean and that gives Mom or Dad a good feeling.

There’s nothing better than the smell of a baby!!! They smell so fresh & clean. I’ve always assumed that it’s really the fragrance used in the baby shampoo, baby soap, etc that smells so good. I’ve never paid attention that it’s just the head that smells good. To me, ALL babies smell good…at least until they dirty their diaper!!!

It is nature’s way of keeping us from hating them for all the gooey poo, slimy vomit, and howling. There has to be a good takeaway, or we would quit having them.

BTW I don’t have a desire to sniff newborns other than my own.
I can see it now…“That baby is only two days old??! Lemme SMELL it!”
I would probably get stabbed.

@Patty_Melt I have read that it is for that same reason parents are hardwired to see their newborns as very, very cute even when the baby looks like a wrinkly old monkey reject. We’re are more likely to take care of babies we perceive as attractive.
That’s what I read, anyway.