Author’s practical guidance
Someone scoops them up without asking
Source named in the book: RIE (Gerber)
Being lifted off the ground by surprise is a total loss of position, applied to somebody who cannot see it coming and cannot get down.
Say this now
“Ask him first — he'll usually say yes.”
To the adult, before contact. Prevention, not repair.
“You can say 'put me down' and people have to.”
Said later, so they have it before they need it.
Do this
- Model it yourself: "Up you come?" and a half-second pause, every single time.
- Put yourself between the fast-moving relative and the child at the door.
- Back the child immediately if they protest. Down first, discuss after.
- Give the same rule to daycare if lifting is part of the day there.
- Teach the two words — "down, please" — as a phrase they practice, not a thing they invent under pressure.
Avoid this
- Grabbing from behind as a joke. Funny from above, not from below.
- "Oh he doesn't mind." Said by the person who cannot see his face.
- Telling the child off for squirming or shouting when they are already in the air.
If it repeats
Where one adult keeps doing it, ask directly: please ask him first. Framed as a habit you are building rather than a criticism, it usually lands. If it does not, stay close at visits.
Why the book suggests this
Being lifted off the ground by surprise is a total loss of position, applied to somebody who cannot see it coming and cannot get down. Adults do it affectionately and almost never announce it, because to an adult it is not an event.
The rule that infant care specialists have argued for over decades is small and specific: say what you are about to do, then wait a beat, then do it. It costs a second and a half. What it buys is a child who is not braced against being handled.
From this collection
Same Words: Their Own Body
45 prepared situations in this family area.