Questions to Ask Parents About Their Baby
Questions for visiting new parents that go further than asking whether the baby sleeps: what she is like, the best and worst hours, feeding and sleep for the parents, who is helping and until when, and what would actually be useful this week.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
How are you both doing?
Ask about the parents before the baby, because for the next few months nearly every conversation they have will be about someone else. The first answer is always fine, so ask it once more later in the visit and wait longer than feels comfortable.
- 2
How did you land on the name?
Reliably warm, always has a story, and it lets them talk about a decision they made rather than a task they are behind on. Only ask if you can hear any answer without making a face, because they will be watching for one.
- 3
What is she like so far?
Asks for a person rather than a statistic, which is what new parents are desperate to describe and are almost never asked for. You will get calm, furious, nosy, or an entire character sketch, and it is far better than a weight in ounces.
- 4
Who does everyone say she looks like, and do you agree?
The second half is what makes this fun, because there is usually a family argument attached and one parent quietly disagreeing with all of it. Safe territory that still produces a real conversation.
- 5
What does she do that nobody warned you about?
Every baby has a handful of surprising habits, the noises in the night, the eyebrow, the specific way she objects to a hat. Parents love this question because it is the only part of the experience nobody had already told them about.
- 6
What is the best hour of the day right now?
Every day in the early weeks has one good hour. Asking for it works even when everything else is hard, and the answer tends to be small and specific: the morning feed, the walk, the ten minutes after the bath.
- 7
What is the hardest stretch?
The natural pair to the previous question, and asking them together makes the hard one easy to answer honestly. If the answer is the whole night or every afternoon, that is the window where an offer of help would actually be used.
- 8
How was the birth, as much or as little as you want to say?
The second half matters. Some parents want to tell the whole story and have nobody to tell it to, and some are recovering from something frightening. Let them choose the length, follow their words, and do not ask for details they have not offered.
- 9
How is sleep for you, not for her?
The usual question is about whether the baby sleeps through, which is both a sore subject and not the point. Asking the parent about their own sleep is a different question, and it should not be followed by a suggestion.
- 10
How is feeding going?
The single most loaded topic in the first months, so keep the question open rather than asking whether they are breastfeeding. Take whatever they say, respond to it, and add nothing about what worked for you or anyone you know.
- 11
Who is helping at the moment, and until when?
The second half finds the cliff. Support usually stacks up in the first fortnight and disappears at once when relatives fly home and leave ends, and that later gap is where an offer is worth the most and is least likely to be made.
- 12
What is the plan with leave and going back?
A practical question that treats them as people with jobs, which they will not have been asked about in weeks. Be ready for uncertainty, since plenty of parents change their minds about this and are not enjoying the decision.
- 13
How is your partner doing?
The non-birthing parent is asked least of anyone in the room and often spends the visit making tea for people who came to see someone else. Ask directly, ask them separately if you can, and ask about their sleep and their leave too.
- 14
How is the older one taking it?
If there is a sibling, this is the question the parents are actually chewing on and nobody raises. It also gives you the single most useful thing you can offer, which is taking the older child out for two hours.
- 15
What do people keep saying that you are tired of hearing?
Gives them permission to complain about something harmless, and it tells you exactly what not to say for the rest of the visit. Common answers are enjoy every moment, sleep when the baby sleeps, and anything beginning with just wait.
- 16
Are visitors good right now, and what time of day works?
Ask about the day and the length rather than just yes or no, since the honest answer is often yes for forty minutes at eleven in the morning. Then hold yourself to whatever they say.
- 17
What are your rules about holding her, shoes, and hand washing?
Asking spares them from having to enforce anything, which is the part new parents find hardest with family. Ask before you arrive rather than at the door with your coat off.
- 18
Would you rather I did not post any photos?
Put it in the negative so that no is the easy answer. Plenty of parents have a firm position on this, have not announced it, and are dreading the moment a picture appears somewhere before they have told people themselves.
- 19
What would actually help this week: can I bring dinner Thursday or take the dog out?
Let me know if you need anything is never taken up. Two specific offers with a day attached can be answered with a single word, and the dull ones, bins, laundry, dog, older child, groceries, are the ones that get accepted.
- 20
What do you want to remember about right now?
The closing question, and the one people are still thinking about after you leave. It asks them to look at the present rather than the exhaustion, and the answer is usually something small they had not said out loud yet.
Visiting new parents
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Questions to skip
Questions to skip
- Is she good, and is she sleeping through the night. Both are really asking the parents to grade themselves.
- Are you breastfeeding. Ask how feeding is going instead and let them decide what to tell you.
- Was it natural, and was it planned. Neither is yours, and both land badly more often than people expect.
- Anything about the baby's size, weight, or percentile presented as a verdict.
- When are you having the next one. Asked of someone three weeks into the last one, it is a strange question however it is meant.
- Comparisons of any kind, including to your own children, your sister's, or what babies did in your day.
Offers that get accepted
Offers that get accepted
- 1Name a task and a day. I can come Tuesday evening and do the dishes is answerable. Let me know if you need anything is not.
- 2Bring food in containers you do not want back, and text from the doorstep rather than ringing the bell in case anyone is asleep.
- 3Take the older child somewhere for two hours. This is worth more than anything you can buy.
- 4Offer to hold the baby while a parent showers or eats a meal with two hands, and mean it for longer than ten minutes.
- 5Do a boring thing without asking permission first: bins, a load of laundry, the recycling, the school run.
- 6Keep the visit short, and leave before you are tired rather than before they are.
If the start was difficult
If the start was difficult
- For a baby in intensive care, ask how today has been rather than how the baby is doing, since the timescale in a hospital is measured in days.
- Use the baby's name. Parents in a hard situation notice immediately when other people avoid it.
- Do not begin any sentence with at least. It is meant kindly and it lands as a correction.
- Follow the words they use for what happened and do not upgrade or soften them.
- Keep asking after the first month. Attention drops away sharply at the point most parents are finding it hardest.
- If either parent seems to be struggling beyond exhaustion, say plainly that you noticed and ask what would help. It is not intruding, and it is often the first time anyone has mentioned it.