The Top 10 Gross Realities About Newborns

Babies are so sweet and precious and we just want to eat them up! (Sometimes.) They’re also straight out of horror movies, if we’re being honest.

Disagree? No offense, but how?

1. Soft spots. It’s no secret that it takes a while for a baby’s skull to fuse together, leaving a soft spot on top of the head in the meantime. What does make it horrifying is that you can actually see and FEEL the baby’s heartbeat pulsating via this soft spot. It’s like you have your own tiny little alien on your hands!

2. Cradle cap. So the cone head and soft spot wasn’t bad enough, now you’ve got to figure out how to gently scrape the scales off of your baby’s head without inflicting brain damage. Grosser still? How satisfying you’ll find it.

3. Sleeping with their eyes open. These creepy little freaks can be out cold, in full REM sleep, and still be staring at you with empty doll-like eyes. Sweet dreams, Mommy Krueger!

4. Razor blade fingernails that grow at the speed of light. Whatever it is that makes babies fingernails grow so fast, if you could bottle it, you’d put nail salons out of business all over the world. Scarier than how fast they grow, and how sharp they are? Trying to cut the damn things.

5. Swollen genitals, baby boners, baby periods and baby boobs that leak. Hormones, schmormones. That shit is just plain WEIRD.

6. The dried-up, still attached, stinky ass umbilical cord. ‘Nuff said.

RELATED: Is Your Baby’s Umbilical Cord Infected? How To Tell (And Other Care Basics)

7. The poop. It’s black as tar, then it’s yellow, sometimes it’s green, then it might be brown eventually… And you can’t NOT look, because, well, you HAVE to look. Eeewwwwww.

8. The peeling skin. Again, hello, alien creature baby!

9. Acne. No, you didn’t give birth to a teenager… it’s just a nasty preview of things to come in a decade and a half.

10. Baby vomit. Even grosser than the actual vomit is the fact that new moms are inevitably covered in it… and they don’t even care.

Now go hug your weirdo baby!

Related: Scary Mommy’s Guide to Surviving Baby’s First Year