Baby Fever Trigger

Marge: So, have you two thought about kids?

Apu: Well sure we have, but the decision to have a child is not to be made lightly.

[Manjula is happily blowing raspberries on baby Maggie's belly]

Apu: On the other hand, monkey see, monkey do.

— The Simpsons, "Eight Misbehavin'"

They say Babies Make Everything Better, but not everyone has the urge to have one right away. After all, raising children comes with a lot of financial and emotional responsibility. Some people briefly consider having kids or are just starting to get fuzzy feelings seeing parents on the street, but they're just not quite certain yet. Some people have other priorities and just don't think much about children — after all, out of sight, out of mind.

Then they see this child, and now all they can think about is having one of their own.

Usually the trigger is meeting a particularly adorable baby or toddler, probably belonging to a friend of theirs, triggering the character to worry they're falling behind in life compared to their friend. Other times, they might start seeing happy families everywhere, whether it's their own tunnel vision because they already want a family or just the world mocking them for not having one yet. Even before the baby is born, just knowing someone close to them is pregnant may be enough to get those fantasies going.

A more self-aware work may point out that since the character only interacts with the baby in brief intervals, they don't see just how exhausting it is to actually raise one — so they may be in for a rude awakening when they actually have a child of their own. They may remedy this by trying to care for the cute child themselves, which may cool down that baby fever or make it worse. In the time it takes to actually have a baby (because it's unlikely they'll have one so soon after wanting one), they'll likely be more prepared to be Good Parents.

An alternate take on this trope shows up when a character serves as a temporary Parental Substitute and bonds with an older child, who helps the adult character learn to be responsible and prompts them to think about whether they're ready to have children permanently.

This can even happen if the characters already have children, but this baby is just so cute, they're willing to go through it all again.

Compare Mandatory Motherhood, My Biological Clock Is Ticking, and I Want Grandkids for more factors that can influence someone to want children. Also compare Closet Key.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest: When Grey and his friends are accidentally sent to Edolas instead of Faris's intended target Elentear, Grey discovers that his Edolas counterpart has had his own kid named Greige. Grey finds Greige utterly adorable, and at one point even expresses a desire to take Greige back to Earth Land with him. Later, when Hakune traps Grey in a Lotus-Eater Machine which shows Grey's various desires within his heart, one of said desires is Grey having his own Greige, making it clear that Grey's Edolas counterpart having a kid left an impression on Grey with a desire for a child of his own.

Comic Books

• Futurama: In "Lost Our Leela," Zapp tricks an amnesiac Leela into acting as his housewife and taking care of three robot teenagers with him. Leela (who, pre-amnesia, had already expressed a belief that she'd be a great mother) enjoys taking care of the robots so much that she propositions Zapp to make a baby with her. This makes him panic as having sex with him may bring back her memory, so he bails. Even after she gets her memory back (and is understandably very mad at Zapp), she does feel fondly for the robot boys and believes the experience convinced her she can be a good mother someday (despite having forgotten to change her own alien pet's diaper for hours).

Fan Works

• The Dresden Fillies: In Great Power: Chapter 1, after seeing a human baby for the first time, Fluttershy wants to be a mother, or at least take care of children, going "I want one."
• The Fifty Shades Series: "Fifty More Shades of Smeg" reveals that Lister first realised that he wanted children when, two years into his marriage with Rimmer, one of his colleagues came in one day to show off his baby daughter and put her into Lister's hands.
• In The Miracleverse, Celestia notes how well Luna gets along with her nieces, which makes Luna realize she may want a foal of her own, though it takes some time for her to find a partner and child.
• In the Pretty Cure fanfiction Unto Us, A Monster is Born, Poisony's desire for a baby is brought upon by seeing Futaba and Ai-chan playing together. This greatly surprises her husband Joker, as previously Poisony had been content with just their two adopted daughters and expressed disdain at the idea of having a baby.

Film — Animated

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: One of Peter B. Parker's reasons for separating from Mary Jane Watson was because she wanted children and he didn't, largely due to his own fear of losing his loved ones. After meeting Miles, however, he realizes he might actually want kids after all, and reconciles with Mary Jane upon returning to his universe. In the next film, Peter has a toddler named Mayday and tells Miles he's the reason Peter had her to convince Miles of his worth.
  Peter: [to Miles] I love you! I'm so proud of you! ...Do I want kids?

Film — Live-Action

• Spice World: When the Spice Girls' heavily pregnant friend Nicola comes in, the Girls all crowd around to feel her bump. Mel B says she is getting broody; and there is then an Imagine Spot to the girls as mothers, some of them more devoted to their children than the others.

Folklore

• In many variants of King Lindworm (which is tale type ATU 433B, "King Lindworm", in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index), a childless queen sees a snake with its brood and wishes to have a son, "even if it is a snake". This also becomes a case of Be Careful What You Wish For, because, nine months later, she gives birth to a snake (who is human underneath the snakeskin due to her hasty wish).
  • Dragon-Child and Sun-Child (Armenia).
  • The Dragon-Prince and the Step-Mother (Turkey).
• In some variants of tale type ATU 441, "Hans My Hedgehog" (in variants with the pig as the husband's form), of the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, a childless woman sights a sow and some piglets, then wishes to have a son, "even if it is a little pig". Thus, one is born to her, but he's actually human underneath the pigskin.

Literature

• Earth's Children: Ayla decides she wants children when she grows up after her little sister Uba is born and she helps her mother care for her, something that brings her great joy. Ayla is told she's unlikely to ever get pregnant because her totem is too strong, which makes her determined to keep her unexpected pregnancy despite the health risks, believing it could be her only chance to be a mother.
• In The Year of the Rat, after a widow with two little children gets employed on the farm, it soon makes Ryska realize how she longs for a family and children of her own.

Live-Action TV

• 30 Rock: Liz reluctantly agrees to hold a coworker's baby, but almost instantly gets baby fever; a jump cut reveals that she has unconsciously left work and taken the child to her own house. This kicks off a plotline in which she attempts to adopt a baby of her own.
• Sam from Cheers is asked to babysit Frederick Crane in one episode. He enjoys it so much that he tries to spend more time with him, only to be rebuked by Frasier who tells him to get his own child. This leads to Sam looking through his past romances to find one who would be willing to have a child with him. He eventually dreams that Elvis Presley tells him to try for a baby with Rebecca. They try repeatedly for about half a season before deciding they're not ready to become parents.
• The Cosby Show: In "One More Time," Clair has to take care of a friend's newborn baby, which makes her want to have another of her own. As the Huxtables already have five children, Cliff thoroughly hates the idea and desperately tries to talk her out of it, pointing out that babies are "false advertising." Clair's mother also helps dissuade her by pointing out that the challenges of having a baby are multiplied as their parents get older.
• In the Friends episode "The One With Barry and Mindy's Wedding", Monica and Richard are having a disagreement about their future while they dance at the reception. Monica wants kids, but Richard is much older and already has kids, he doesn't want to go through that again. Monica loves Richard and starts to question her desires, rationalizing it away as mere indoctrination by her mother. Then she sees two cute little girls dancing with each other and has to admit to herself that she wants that someday. She has to break up with Richard. Video here
• Full House: After an episode of Jesse trying and failing to convince Becky they could have another baby, Becky agrees to give it a shot after covering a story about a miraculous birth on her news show. Nothing seems to come of it, though, as they never have another baby during the show.
• How I Met Your Mother: Lily and Marshall's story arc about having children kicks off in "Not a Father's Day", when they start to get baby fever from all the cute babies they see. Marshall meets their neighbor's new baby, Jeremy, and is overcome by how cute his tiny sock is. While Lily initially holds back on having kids (since she actually spoke with Jeremy's exhausted mother while Marshall played with Jeremy), when she gets drunk and sees the sock herself, she foregoes all logic and decides to try and conceive a baby with Marshall right at his workplace (though once she sobers up, they both decide to wait a while). Both Barney and Robin (who both insist they don't want kids) go into Cuteness Proximity as well when they come across the sock.
• Scrubs: Dr. Kelso taunts Dr. Elliot Reid when she wants to volunteer to take shifts in the Maternity Ward. He thinks that all women who work there either want to take care of babies or will want kids of their own and won't become doctors like him.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • "Emissary" reveals through a flashback that what inspired Jennifer and Benjamin Sisko to have Jake was hearing two kids happily playing.
  • In "Time's Orphan", Worf and Dax have to babysit the O'Briens' baby son Yoshi while his parents are dealing with his time-travelling older sister Molly. Babysitting Yoshi makes Worf decide he wants kids of his own, and he feels he must prove himself able to take care of a baby.
• The Thin Blue Line: In "Kids Today", Kray says that all women have baby fever when they turn thirty. Habib asks Patricia if she wants a baby; Patricia replies that she could take it or leave it. Later, she briefly cares for a baby that is abandoned outside their police station; baby fever descends, and she buys a pair of baby socks on a whim, to persuade her partner Fowler to become a parent. When he flatly refuses, she hits him over the head with a large frozen fish.

Webcomics

• One Of Those Days: In the strip "I Think She's Ready", Maya is seen drooling at a mother cradling her baby and looks to be hypnotized by the sight. This indicates that she wants kids and the strip kick-starts an arc in the comic where Maya and Yehuda keep trying for a child until they eventually succeed in the aptly named strip, "We're Pregnant!!!".

Western Animation

• Bluey: Played for Drama in "Onesies". Brandy is said to want something she can't have, which is implied to be children because the mention was intercepted with shots of her playing with her little niece Bingo. She's been away for four years, and so would have left when Bingo was one, so it's implied that seeing the one-year-old Bingo (along with her older sister Bluey) was too much for her and kept making her want the kids she couldn't have.
• Parodied in the first episode BoJack Horseman. Princess Carolyn sees a cute baby, and BoJack, knowing she wants a child of her own but absolutely not wanting one himself, pushes the baby stroller over and runs into traffic.
• The Fairly OddParents!: "Fairly OddBaby" begins with Cosmo and Wanda getting distracted and overemotional when they see families with babies at the park, to the point of neglecting their godson Timmy. Because they are fairies, and they are immortal, babies have been banned so as to not overpopulate Fairy Land and has been that way for at least thousands of years ^note To put it in perspective, at this moment, the youngest fairy is Cosmo. Timmy finds a loophole by wishing for them to have a baby. It works, and the baby is the first one that fairies have had in millennia.
• Family Guy: In "Emission Impossible", helping Lois's sister Carol give birth makes Peter want to have another baby. His initial instinct is to just steal Carol's baby but instead concedes to try and conceive with Lois again, kicking off the episode's plot.
• The Flintstones: The Rubbles are so enamored with the Flintstones' baby Pebbles that they wish upon a star for a child of their own. The next day, baby Bamm-Bamm is left at their doorstep.
• Futurama: In "The Cyber House Rules", Adlai seeing Bender with his adopted orphans makes him want to have a child with Leela, despite Bender obviously being a terrible parent. When Bender is arrested and loses custody of the orphans, Adlai and Leela actually try to adopt one (specifically the three-eared orphan Sally), though Leela dumps Adlai when he refuses to adopt a disfigured orphan as she is, and the kids remain unadopted.
• A variant in King of the Hill: Peggy wants to have another child after seeing Hank try to get the family dog Lady Bird (who has a narrow uterus) to have puppies, and gets jealous that Hank won't put in the same effort to aid his own fertility issues. However, it turns out Hank wanted puppies to relax them enough to conceive again, as it was adopting Lady Bird as a puppy years prior that had relaxed them enough to conceive Bobby.
• The Loud House: In "Time Trap!", the Loud children go back in time but accidentally cause their own nonexistence. When resetting the timeline, two-year-old Lily invokes this trope by deliberately acting cute to ensure the parents will want kids.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Eight Misbehavin'", Manjula playing with Maggie is what finally pushes her and Apu to start trying for children.
  • In "Blame it on Lisa", Lisa's video of the Brazilian orphan she sponsors briefly makes Marge consider having another child.
  • In "The Dad-Feelings Limited", after spending a few minutes with Maggie, Kumiko immediately decides she wants to have children, but her husband, Comic Book Guy is reluctant.
• Steven Universe: "Greg the Babysitter" heavily implies that Rose meeting the baby Sour Cream was what made her want to have a child, as she was fascinated by the human's ability to grow and change from something so small and wanted her child to have that experience.
• Ugly Americans: In one episode contact with a demon baby causes Human-Demon Hybrid Callie to go into heat, which for female demons apparently includes baby fever, lactating fire, and pheromones that have a more dramatic effective on mature male demons.

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