How to call a baby?

<And you're right, the answer to: "How to call a baby?" is: Hey, baby!" or: "Goo, goo!">

Or by its name.

Name is good!

Well, in most cases it's impossible to know if it's male or female.

So then what? Call it 'he'? Probably femenist rage would manifest in exchange.

You say: Hallo there, who is this?

And you smile a lot, you macho!

<Probably femenist rage would manifest in exchange. >

Rage? Why not just "feminist disagreement"? So, would you agree to calling an unborn baby "he" if the sex was not known? If so, why?

It was dialectical in southern American English to refer to a baby as "it." "It's" all I heard, growing up. However, I'm almost 70, and there has been some change. It probably hooks together with the old custom in the southern Appalachians not to name a child until it was one year old. The reason for that was the appallingly high infant mortality rate. Also, it was common, if a child died as a toddler, to use that same name for a subsequently-born child. Since I grew up hearing the neuter used with very young children, I wasn't really surprised, when I learned German, to find that German also treated children as neuter - "das Kind."

I've experienced similar, Earle. In NE England, if a baby dies soon after birth, we'd probably us "it" in all reference to it.

EG (Both speakers know the gender of the child.)

Marion: Did you know that Mary's baby died in its sleep last week?

Mark: No! Did it suffer, do you think?

Marion: No, I don't think so.

"It" is used as a kind of distancing-effect or because the child hasn't yet developed "a male or female personality".

We'd also use it to avoid ambiguity:

?*Marion: Mary once had a baby, but it died after just a few days.

Change to:

Marion: Mary once had a baby, but it died after just a few days.

I presume you meant to type "but she died" in the first sentence, correct? That disambiguation can be handy, but it's also not much more trouble to say "but the baby died", either.

Thanks, Kef.

Edited:

We'd also use it to avoid ambiguity:

?*Marion: Mary once had a baby, but she died after just a few days.

Change to:

Marion: Mary once had a baby, but it died after just a few days.

<That disambiguation can be handy, but it's also not much more trouble to say "but the baby died", either. >

It's handy having a few options at one's calling. Or do you also have a problem with "it"?

<but it's also not much more trouble to say "but the baby died", either.>

So you'd advise repetition of "baby", would you? Is that common in the USA?

"?Marion: Mary once had a baby, but the baby died after just a few days."

I can't really comment on what other people in the U.S. say. It's not a situation I've paid much attention to.

<I can't really comment on what other people in the U.S. say.>

So you'd advise repetition of "baby", would you?

I would say that it's a safe form that usually isn't troublesome. I wouldn't go so far as to say "never use 'it' to refer to a baby", but you generally don't have to do it.