Piercing baby's ears under one

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Another age old debate is whether or not you should pierce your baby girl’s ears. If you go on forums you will see people slating mothers that have chosen to do this saying it is child abuse and it's wrong etc. Honestly though, have you ever seen a child under 10 who hasn’t had her ears pierced? People are too quick to judge nowadays and shouldn’t be so mean, too many strangers interfere in other people’s lives, they should back off and keep their opinions to themselves.

When I had my little girl, I wanted to pierce her ears as soon as possible, not because I wanted her to wear nice earrings or show that she is a girl but because I wanted to save her the pain when she’s older. I have a second ear piercing when I was 11 by my own choice, I hated it! It was so painful I couldn’t sleep for 3 days; I remember constantly asking for paracetamol just so I could sleep. Then when that wore off or didn’t work I had to sleep with an ice pack against my ear. I also got my nose pierced at 14 and yes that hurt like crazy too.

In fact everyone I know has had their ears pierced before the age of two and no-one from my inner circle has questioned or judged me from piercing my baby’s ears.

Piercing baby’s ears at 8 months

I finally got round to it when my daughter was eight months, we went to a well known jewellers in Port Louis and the ears were cleaned and numbing cream was applied; they were also marked so the piercer knew where to pierce. The first one was quick as my daughter had no clue, but the second was harder because she knew what to expect. She cried for a few minutes then calmed down. When we got into the car to drive home she started crying again, I then gave her some Calpol (baby pain relief/paracetamol) and she was fine. She slept fine that night and never indicated that her ears were hurting her. Four months later and I haven’t changed her earrings yet as I have no need to, also nice earrings for babies are hard to find here. When she had her ears pierced, I was a little shocked when the jeweller said that I could change the earrings after just one week, needless to say I was in no rush and common sense would tell you that in no way would it have healed for me to change the earrings.

My niece of the same age also had her ears pierced but she pulled out one of the earrings, and as her parents didn’t put the earring back in straight away, it closed up thus her needing to have her ear re-pierced. It was horrendous she screamed and cried her eyes out; even now she is conscious of her ears and doesn’t like them to be touched. I tried to put a small baby clip in her hair once, and when it clicked she screamed thinking I was piercing her ears (it makes the same noise). I am glad that I pierced my daughter’s ears because it will save her the pain I went through and I still remember it clear as day.

Peaches Level 3

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anonymous_4 Level 1

Like many moms, I was unsure when to pierce our dd's ears. Admittedly, my bias was initially against having babies ears pierced at an early age. However, I kept seeing lots of babies and little girls with cute earrings in our church nursery and MDO.

One day, in our playgroup of moms with little girls, one of the moms came in unannounced with her 2 month daughter sporting little gold balls in her pretty newly pierced ears. She was totally adorable and looked very feminine. Needless to say, all of the moms including myself were in envy asking her a 100 questions. She said it was very easy and her dd barely cried.

I went home and asked dh what he thought. Surprisingly, he said that really wanted our dd to have earrings since it was traditional in her family, but would respect my wishes about it. At this point, being a "white bread mommy," I was unsure how I felt about it, but knew how darling it looked. Well, I said that I would ask our ped for her thoughts at the next visit in a a week.

When I asked our ped for her opinion about having our dd’s ears pierced, she reached in her pocket and took out a picture of her six month little girl with pearls in each ear, saying,” …this is what I think.” She encouraged me to go ahead and said it was best as an infant when mommy could care for them.

According to our ped, she has never had a baby with a pierced ear infection, but has had quite a few older girls ages 2-5 who said they wanted it done, but failed to care for them. She gave me some ” Care Tips for Newly Pierced Ears ” since she had so many moms ask about having their infants and little girls ears pierced. Our dd now has pretty pierced ears at 3 months old :)

I'd say if any moms are thinking about it, then your mommy intuition is telling earlier is better and I go ahead now as a newborn or infant.