Do you remember the moment you gained consciousness as a child? Some folks do, and they’ve written about their experiences online, like this Redditor who said they possess a “vivid” memory of the exact instance they started cataloging all of life’s experiences in their minds and weren’t just on auto-pilot. The concept of gaining sentience as a child has been the subject of various memes and online jokes, and recently, a viral TikTok affectionately known as The Four Seasons Baby.
If you haven’t seen the video, a quick glimpse is all it takes to understand why so many people are freaking out over the way this child speaks. Aesthetically, the toddler looks like the dancing baby gif: She’s pretty much bald and is wearing a large diaper.
So seeing this kid react immediately to being asked if they want to go to the Four Seasons in Orlando, with a punctuated finger up in the air is, as many viewers stated, jarring to watch. And nanny Grace Johanna (@gracejohanna) explained that the child is, more than likely, older than people realize. It’s just that the “classic baby” look is what’s making folks think her father is holding an infant and not a toddler.
@sobrizzle If the @Four Seasons Hotels ♬ original sound – Stefanie O’Brien
Development-wise, Johanna argues, there are massive milestones children go through on a week-to-week and month-to-month basis. Children’s Health writes that at around 15 months, babies will start gesturing and even speaking in an attempt to communicate with adults. And since the Four Seasons baby has an older sibling, Johanna argues, there’s a good chance the child became verbal more quickly as she presumably is frequently engaging and talking with her big sister (but there are some medical professionals who say that this supposition isn’t rooted in any actual scientific fact).
@gracejohanna #fourseasonsorlando #conciousbaby ♬ original sound – gracejohanna
“That baby is older than you think she is. She is just bald-headed,” Johanna argues. “She’s at least 15 to 16 months old,” Johanna says in her clip, while also offering in a text overlay that the child could also be as old as “2 years” as well. However, according to Rolling Stone, the mother confirmed the baby is almost 13 months old.
Johanna continued to offer her thoughts on the Four Seasons baby’s self-awareness, saying she “probably can feed herself she can probably, she definitely can walk.”
Several other TikTokers who responded to her video seemed to agree with Johanna’s breakdown. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few commenters who had jokes about the situation.
“I love how the conscious baby has her own PR team,” one said.
Another quipped, “Did fully conscious baby pay you to make this??”
And then others said they had experienced a similar phenomenon to what Johanna was referring to themselves: “As a former bald baby, yes,” one person wrote.
Someone else remarked, “I was also a bald headed verbally advanced baby. my parents used me as their party trick.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Johanna via email for further comment.
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