May 29, 2018
Don't Let the 3-Year-Old Name the Baby
My three-year-old has had some supernatural instincts regarding this pregnancy. She was the one who tipped my radar to think, “Hmm, am I pregnant?” last May when she asked me, “Is there a baby in there?” as she pointed to my belly. Then she very matter of factually stated, “There is a baby in there and it's a girl!” She's a rather confident girl — the one who spent two years constantly making messes with her overly confident skills of doing things herself or experimenting.
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For a while my husband and I really struggled with naming this newest addition so I would ask our children for their suggestions to draw ideas from. For a while when we were set on not knowing the baby's gender (and failed), my kids referred to her as Baby Peanut as an endearing nickname. My oldest daughter of almost 10 suggested normal names like Charlotte or Lily. My son could care less, as long as he could remember the name, whatever it is. But my three-year-old? She said the baby's name was Bubbles for months. Bubbles — can you imagine that as a real name? Ha! Now that we know that baby five is a girl, she insists the baby's name is not Lylah, as we have finally picked, but Elsa. Yes, like Queen Elsa of Arendelle in Disney's Frozen movie. It is a beautiful name, for sure, but not exactly what we had in mind as Frozen fever still runs rampant. We try to correct her and remind her of the baby's official name and she says, “No! It's Elllllssaa, mommy.” Again, very matter of fact with her little sassy preschooler attitude as if she has sole naming rights.
I asked other moms the hilarious names their soon-to-be-big-sibling wanted to name the new baby:
- “Malin had a new one every day. I wish I had written them down. Harry Stotter was one of my favorites. The one that stuck was Whaleston. He called the baby Whaleston for a while after he was born.” — Marian G.
- “Maddy called Ellie 'Broccoli' for a good year. She even told the nurses in the hospital that this was her baby sister, Broccoli.” — Anne W.
- “Jack was only satisfied with having another brother if we named him Luke, as in Skywalker.” — Jessy M.
- “My four-year-old thought he was being so sophisticated when he very seriously suggested we name the baby Mocha Cappuccino. He obviously knows my loves.” — Leah J.
- “My 3rd child named my 5th child Superman Buzz Lightyear. He called him that almost my entire pregnancy. He was disappointed when that couldn't actually be his name, but we have an outfit with that name on it and took some cute pics anyway.” — April D.
- “My oldest was 5 when I was pregnant with #2. She wanted to name the baby Rufus Wasabi.” — Lori G.
- “My first called Sarah "Cinderella Flutterfly" (Flutterfly was how she pronounced butterfly). She was very upset that we would not let that be her name. We had a talk about how we choose a name based on its meaning and started looking at baby names together. She saw that Sarah meant princess, so she started telling everyone that her name was Sarah and it stuck!” — Amanda A.
- “Dietye (die-tie). My then 5-year-old was SET on it!” — Ashley F.
- “Alexis has named this baby 'Purple' and will proudly tell anyone that she can.” — Marcie H.
- “My almost 3-month-old was given the name ‘nacho’ by his big sister.” — Shawna B.
Kids and their limitless minds can be quite comical! It's a good thing they don't have the naming power though.
