History Main / ThreeMonthOldNewborn

This can have [[TheCoconutEffect an unfortunate side effect]], due to the fact that RealityIsUnrealistic, making a person's first encounter with a real newborn possibly {{squick}}y. Real newborns aren't clean-looking gurgling bundles of cuteness. Real newborns are covered in mucus, blood, amniotic fluid, and other bodily substances, up to and including fecal matter. There is a chance they could be covered in a peach fuzz-like substance called lanugo (a remnant of when our ancestors were a lot hairier than we are now; most fetuses lose it before birth, but obviously, a few don't). They may also be covered in a waxy white substance called vernix caseosum, which is basically just congealed skin oils, dead cells, and lanugo and serves as a sort of moisturizer for the baby before birth, when they were still submerged in amniotic fluid. Their skin will usually have a red hue to it as well and look somewhat "wrinkly", especially if they are considerably premature. On top of all this, most newborns have noticeably misshapen heads from the birth process, since their skulls aren't yet closed and their bones are very flexible.[[note]]Babies delivered by caesarean section either do not have this, or it is far less pronounced.[[/note]] To say nothing of the placenta that should be popping out with the babe. Even newborns that have been cleaned up and are a couple days old are generally UglyCute at best. It's been said that all newborn babies look like UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.

This can even carry over to newborn animal babies, which fiction likes to depict as [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the cutest, smallest things]] ever to arrive, when in actuality, most altricial newborn animals arrive slimy, hairless, and often [[EyelessFace eyeless]] because their eyes may be covered by a layer of skin that takes some time to wither away. Take a look [[http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg at a newborn rabbit]] and you'll think your bunny just gave birth to a dumpling. Marsupials (such as kangaroos, opossums, possums, quolls, and koalas) are even more altricial, looking uncannily like gummi bears and being about the same size. Even baby precocial animals (those that are active and capable of complex actions shortly after being born), like baby chicks, ducklings, guinea pigs, foals, fawns, and calves, spend most of their first hour after being born exhausted from exertion and usually very drowsy, damp, and clumsy.

* The ''Franchise/{{Dragonball}}'' spinoff comic ''Dragonball Minus'' plays with this trope in an interesting way. Son Goku was revealed to have been kept in an incubation tank for three years. Due to the length of time and extra space, [[https://78.media.tumblr.com/11771622d74c21ca8cb45de71d7ec4fd/tumblr_n3ox3zZavJ1tsp8k5o2_500.png he looked like a toddler]] as soon as he was "born."
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic''--Hinahoho and Rurumu, both of whom are about seven feet tall, have a child who can not only coo and toddle seemingly from birth, but is almost as big as his ten-year-old "brother" and reluctant babysitter, Ja'far.

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/MyFlutteringHeart''. In canon, Flurry Heart looks different from other newborns, due to her having the eyes of an older pony. In this AU, it's justified because Flurry wasn't ''actually'' a newborn. Shining found her after killing Chrysalis, realized she was his daughter and brought her home to raise with his wife. Cadence decided to pass herself off as pregnant, wait several weeks, then pretend she had just given birth.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheRugratsMovie'', Dil can say the words “poopy” and “mine”, and can hold his own bottle, but otherwise behaves like a typical newborn. However, the musical number in the maternity ward features newborns who are able to sing when they’re only about a few minutes old. Either those babies are geniuses or Dil is literally dumber than a monkey.

* In the TV movie ''Million Dollar Babies'', about the Dionne quintuplets, the producers used animatronic dolls for the newborn quints. Using older babies to represent the newborn Dionne girls, who were two months premature, and small for that, would have been ridiculous, and defeatist as well, since it's a major portion of the first half-hour of the film that the girls are tiny, premature, and not expected to live. In addition to that, finding five babies who looked alike would be difficult. Obviously, using real, underweight newborns or preemies was out of the question. The film was made before CGI was an option.

* French film ''Romance'' has what appears to be an actual birth. Close-up of vagina and everything.

* Initially averted in the the Rhys Darby/Sasha Alexander romcom ''Coming and Going'': during the birth scene the baby is heard but never shown, even though [[spoiler:its skin color is a plot point]]. The baby is shown a few hours later, however, and it's not as large as some of the newborns falling under this trope.

* In ''Film/SpiceWorld'': when Nicola gives birth to a girl, not only is the baby a few weeks old, but was a boy instead of a girl.

* Averted in ''Series/CallTheMidwife'', where nearly all of the babies that appear are actual newborns (with the exception of the birth scenes, which substitute a model). They can do this because both consultant midwife Terri Coates and the baby's mum are always just off-camera.

* Little baby Jake in the ''Series/SesameStreet'' spin off, ''Sesame English'' (which teaches English to foreigners, starting with Taiwanese and Chinese), is portrayed by Roger Bart (who was 37 at the time of first airing) of all people.

* Averted in Russian series ''Tainy Sledstviya'' season 1, where real pregnacy and childbirth of Anna Kovalchuk (as investigator Maria Shvetsova) was included, and her newborn daughter Zlata ([[AsHerself as Maria's daughter Zlata]]) was shown.
* In ''Series/WandaVision'', Wanda's twins are born like this after a few minutes of labour, perfectly clean, and with a blanket that appears from literally nowhere. This is justified by their [[RealityWarper current reality]] operating like a sitcom.
* Averted in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Existence". Baby William is played by Jerry Shiban, the newborn son of one of the producers of the show. He was only about two weeks old when the episode was filmed. Creepily enough, he ''does'' look like he could be Mulder and Scully's child.

* ''Magazine/TheOnion'' satirized this with one of its headlines: "Woman on TV gives birth to four month old baby".

** Hammie and Wren are another example; while they are shown with the usual afterbirth, and are anatomically-correct, in the former's case, they never cry when they are born.

* In ''Webcomic/BlueYonder'', while his father is still pushing his mother about in a wheelchair after his birth, [[http://www.blueyondercomic.net/comics/1729438/blue-yonder-chapter-3-page-one/ Jared can sit up unaided.]] May be a moot point since he can also fly.

* On the day Pebbles was born on ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'', she had enough hair for a ponytail. What's more, it's bright red. Adult redheads tend to have thin hair. A baby ginger should look nearly bald.

** This was taken to extremes in Medieval paintings, where ''all'' babies looked like miniature adults instead of like actual children.

* In animals, this is referred to as being precocial, when an animal comes out of the egg or womb ready to fend for itself. Most reptiles do this, as well as several varieties of bird (notably ratites and fowl). It's comparatively rare amongst mammals, but...

* Anatomy texts depicting childbirth show the infant in correct proportion, but generally omit the blood, fragments of amniotic sac, and other messy elements because it would obscure details in the illustration.

This can have [[TheCoconutEffect an unfortunate side effect]], due to the fact that RealityIsUnrealistic, making a person's first encounter with a real newborn possibly {{squick}}y. Real newborns aren't clean-looking gurgling bundles of cuteness. Real newborns are covered in mucus, blood, amniotic fluid, and other bodily substances, up to and including fecal matter. There is a chance they could be covered in a peach fuzz-like substance called lanugo (a remnant of when our ancestors were a lot hairier than we are now; most fetuses lose it before birth, but obviously, a few don't). They may also be covered in a waxy white substance called vernix caseosum, which is basically just congealed skin oils, dead cells, and lanugo and serves as a sort of moisturiser for the baby prior to birth, when they were still submerged in amniotic fluid. Their skin will usually have a red hue to it as well and look somewhat "wrinkly", especially if they are considerably premature. On top of all this, most newborns have noticeably misshapen heads from the birth process, since their skulls aren't yet closed and their bones are very flexible.[[note]]Babies delivered by caesarean section either do not have this, or it is far less pronounced.[[/note]] To say nothing of the placenta that should be popping out with the babe. Even newborns that have been cleaned up and are a couple days old are generally UglyCute at best. It's been said that all newborn babies look like UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.

This is an OmnipresentTrope, so only aversions, subversions, inversions, parodies, particularly absurd examples, and the like should be added.

* While ''ComicStrip/BabyBlues'' is mainly inspired by RealLife events, the research about babies is inaccurate, possibly due to the fact that the comic was created prior to computers.

** Hammie is born with "Dumbo" ears and a full set of hair and Zoe and Wren were always seen with three hairs on their head prior to becoming toddlers.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', when Rapunzel is supposed to be so young that her parents are still celebrating her birth, she has flowing (magic) hair and can hold up her own head and focus and otherwise act months older. The narration describes the period of time before Gothel abducts her as "a moment."

* Averted by [[https://youtu.be/71-7oVOx3oQ this]] Pampers ad, in which the baby does appear to be a newborn (albeit cleaned up).

* While not shown for obvious reason, a scene in ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' has Nobita goes back to the day he was born, when he sees himself as a baby, complaining that it's "fuzzy like a monkey" (which might have been lanugo explained above), of course his parents at the time didn't take this too well.

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/MyFlutteringHeart''. In canon, Flurry Heart looks different from other newborns. She has the eyes of an older pony. In this AU, it's justified in that Flurry wasn't ''actually'' a newborn. Shining found her after killing Chrysalis, realized she was his daughter, and brought her home to raise with his wife. Cadance decided to pass herself off as pregnant, wait several weeks, then pretend she had just given birth.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', the title character has presumably just been born at the beginning since, as in the above examples, his birth is being celebrated. Yet he both looks and acts more like a one-year-old. Then again, he is a ''god'' until Pain and Panic [[HumanityEnsues turn him mortal]].

This can have [[TheCoconutEffect an unfortunate side effect]], due to the fact that RealityIsUnrealistic, making a person's first encounter with a real newborn possibly {{squick}}y. Real newborns aren't clean-looking gurgling bundles of cuteness. Real newborns are covered in mucus, blood, amniotic fluid, and other bodily substances, up to and including fecal matter. There is a chance they could be covered in a peach fuzz-like substance called lanugo (a remnant of when our ancestors were a lot hairier than we are now; most fetuses lose it before birth, but obviously, a few don't). They may also be covered in a waxy substance called vernix caseosum, which is basically just congealed skin oils, dead cells, and lanugo. Their skin will usually have a red hue to it as well and look somewhat "wrinkly", especially if they are considerably premature. On top of all this, most newborns have noticeably misshapen heads from the birth process, since their skulls aren't yet closed and their bones are very flexible.[[note]]Babies delivered by caesarean section either do not have this, or it is far less pronounced.[[/note]] To say nothing of the placenta that should be popping out with the babe. Even newborns that have been cleaned up and are a couple days old are generally UglyCute at best. It's been said that all newborn babies look like UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill.

This can even carry over to newborn animal babies, which fiction likes to depict as [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the cutest, smallest things]] ever to arrive, when in actuality, most altricial newborn animals arrive slimy, hairless, and often [[EyelessFace eyeless]] because their eyes may be covered by a layer of skin that takes some time to wither away. Take a look [[http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg at a newborn rabbit]] and you'll think your bunny just gave birth to a dumpling. Marsupials (such as kangaroos, opossums, possums, quolls, and koalas) are even more altricial, looking uncannily like gummi bears and being about the same size. Even baby precocial animals (those that are active and capable of complex actions shortly after being born), like baby chicks, ducklings, guinea pigs, foals, fawns, and calves, spend their first hour after being born exhausted from exertion and usually very drowsy, damp, and clumsy.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' averts this whenever possible. Any shots of newborn babies show them with translucent red skin, showing off veins and eyeballs for maximum ickiness.

* When Zoe was a baby, she looks older than the average newborn and has a square-ish head instead of the misshapen head that babies are usually born with.
** Hammie and Wren are another example; while they are shown with the usual afterbirth, and are [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar anatomically-correct]], in the former's case, they never cry when they are born.

** Hammie and Wren are another example; while they are shown with the usual afterbirth, and are [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar anatomy-correct]], in the former's case, they never cry when they are born.

* While ''ComicStrip/BabyBlues'' is mainly inspired by RealLife events, the research about babies is inaccurate.
* When Zoe is born, she looks older than the average newborn and has a square-ish head instead of the misshapen head that babies are usually born with.
** Hammie and Wren are another example; while they are shown with the usual afterbirth, and are [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar anatomy-correct]], in the former's case, they never cry when they are taken out. Hammie was born with big ears, which is very unlikely to appear on a baby.

This can even carry over to newborn animal babies, which fiction likes to depict as [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the cutest, smallest things]] ever to arrive, when in actuality, most altricial newborn animals arrive slimy, hairless, and often [[EyelessFace eyeless]] because their eyes may be covered by a layer of skin that takes some time to wither away. Take a look [[http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg at a newborn rabbit]] and you'll think your bunny just gave birth to a dumpling. Marsupials (such as kangaroos, opossums, possums, quolls, and koalas) are even more altricial, looking uncannily like gummi bears and being about the same size. Even baby precocial animals (those that are active and capable of complex actions shortly after being born), like baby chicks, ducklings, guinea pigs, foals, fawns and calves, spend their first hour after being born exhausted from exertion and usually very drowsy, damp and clumsy.

* The baby [[BornInAnElevator born in the elevator]] in the ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' Christmas episode. Also, she has hair.

* Averted in ''ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}'', where the newborn Winter Moran is shown fairly accurately; her skin is flushed, her limbs are withered, her face is wrinkled, her head is misshapen from being squeezed through a birth canal, and she's covered in gunge and placenta. Proving that RealityIsUnrealistic, Moore got reader mail asking if the baby was okay or accusing the baby of being OffModel, and had to explain that they had used a reference book containing pictures of real newborn babies.

This is an OmnipresentTrope, so only aversions, subversions, inversions, parodies, and the like should be added.

* The baby born in the elevator in the ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' Christmas episode. Also, she has hair.

* In ''Literature/TheBestChristmasPageantEver,'' one of the babies offered to play baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant is a four-year-old. His mother says he can scrunch up.

A subtrope of DawsonCasting, one specifically about newborns, or at least TV so-called newborns. Whenever a supposedly just-born child appears on TV, the baby you will see will actually be several months old. Put this down to a mixture of simple ethics, employment laws, and casting laws that make it unacceptable to cast a real newborn in such a role. This is because sound stages are hot, bright, stuffy, and dusty places--not a great environment for a newborn infant prone to infection and unable to control body temperature.

This can even carry over to newborn animal babies, which fiction likes to depict as [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the cutest, smallest things]] ever to arrive, when in actuality, most altricial newborn animals arrive slimy, hairless, and often [[EyelessFace eyeless]] because their eyes may be covered by a layer of skin that takes some time to wither away. Take a look [[http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg at a newborn rabbit]] and you'll think your bunny just gave birth to a dumpling. Marsupials (such as kangaroos, opossums, possums, quolls, and koalas) are even more altricial, looking uncannily like gummi bears and being about the same size.

This can even carry over to newborn animal babies, which fiction likes to depict as [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter the cutest, smallest things]] ever to arrive, when in actuality, most altricial newborn animals arrive slimy, hairless, and often [[EyelessFace eyeless]] because their eyes may be covered by a layer of skin that takes some time to wither away. Take a look [[http://www.orcca.on.ca/~elena/useful/new_born_rabbit.jpg at a newborn rabbit]] and you'll think your bunny just gave birth to a dumpling. Marsupials (such as kangaroos, opossums, possums, quolls, and koalas) are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lCKc8tURtc even more altricial]], looking uncannily like gummi bears and being about the same size.

* Literally every baby in ''WesternAnimation/Rugrats'', with Dil to a lesser extent. Dil’s a newborn, yet he can say a few words and hold his own bottle. Meanwhile, Chuckie is two years old and can only say the word “no” around the adults. In real life, 2-year-olds are typically more verbal than that.

* In ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', when Rapunzel is supposed to be so young that her parents are still celebrating her birth, she has flowing (magic) hair and can hold up her own head and focus and otherwise act months older. The narration describes the period of time before Gothel abducts her as "a moment."
* In ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'', the title character has presumably just been born at the beginning since, as in the above examples, his birth is being celebrated. Yet he both looks and acts more like a one-year-old. Then again, he is a ''god'' until Pain and Panic [[HumanityEnsues turn him mortal]].
* In ''The Rugrats Movie'', Dil can say the words “poopy” and “mine”, and can hold his own bottle, but otherwise behaves like a typical newborn. However, the musical number in the maternity ward features newborns who are able to sing when they’re only about a few minutes old. Either those babies are geniuses or Dil is literally dumber than a monkey.

* PlayedForLaughs in ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic''--Hinahoho and Rurumu, both of whom are about seven feet tall, have a child who cannot only coo and toddle seemingly from birth, but is almost as big as his ten-year-old "brother" and reluctant babysitter, Ja'far.