Baby spam. It’s the crime of the century. Or it’s the best thing ever.

If you agree with the second statement, you’re probably a baby spammer.

Your friends have their social media feeds filled with a never-ending stream of photos of your baby.

And, far from worrying whether this is annoying for them, you feel like they should thank you for brightening up their otherwise drab newsfeeds.

After all, you have created (pretty much singlehandedly) the world’s most adorable baby; it would be selfish to keep that to yourself, wouldn’t it?

While some like to keep their kids offline, many modern parents are more than happy to share photos of their babies with the world.

How To Know If You’re A Baby Spammer

You know you’re a baby spammer when…

#1: You Just Can’t Choose

As any keen baby spammer will know, it takes time to get the perfect shot. You can’t just aim, click, and upload. You need to find the right angle, select the best filter, and choose the best shot. This means that every time you want a photo of your baby, you take about 50. And then, well, sometimes it’s hard to narrow them down, isn’t it? They’re all just so damn cute! Oh, to hell with it, just upload them all. Baby spam alert! Sorry, not sorry.

#2: Your Baby Has Her Own Hashtag

To make things easier for all your instafans, you devised a hashtag to use when sharing photos of your baby. You thought this up when you were pregnant and aren’t embarrassed to admit it was a deciding factor when trying to choose the perfect name for your baby. It needed to be Instagrammable. There’s no shame in that.

A simple search pulls up hundreds of photos of your gorgeous baby girl and you’re not ashamed to admit you spend hours flicking through them. A personalised hashtag is surely the modern equivalent of a baby book anyway, right?

#3: You Always Have Your Phone In Your Hand

The problem with being a professional baby spammer, is that you simply don’t want to risk missing that perfect shot. You never can tell when your baby will do something particularly amazing, cute or impressive. To make sure you’re not left with only fading memories, you keep your phone with you at all times. When it’s not in your hand, it’s in your pocket and when it’s not there you’re running round like a maniac trying to find it. You document pretty much every single little thing your baby does.

#4: You Have A Phone Head

In fact, you keep your phone with you so much that your baby thinks it’s a part of your body. Your head, to be exact. Because whenever she looks up at you with those beautiful big eyes, you lift up your phone to snap a few shots. To your baby, you’re basically a pair of boobs, a neck, and a metal oblong. There’s no shame in that though, it’s totally worth it for all the great photos. Plus, if she wants to know what you really look like, she can always check your Instagram account.

#5: You Have A Poser Baby

While other babies are busy working on their fine motor skills and language development, your baby is honing the skills necessary for a career as a baby model. Thanks to the hours the two of you have spent fine tuning your mama-baby selfies, your sweet little girl can pose like no other.

She has perfected her adorable smile, and is also pretty good at a grumpy grimace when you need something a little different. When she spots a phone or camera, she immediately breaks out into a gorgeous grin, which is great unless you’re trying to snap a few candid shots. You have no natural photos because your baby is unable to be near a camera without giving that huge gummy grin.

#6: Your Baby’s First Word Was Cheese

It wasn’t her unnatural love of halloumi that dictated your child’s first word; instead it was the amount of time spent in front of the camera. In fact, you’ve been asking your baby to say cheese since long before she could talk, so it’s not that surprising that she can now repeat it back to you. Yeah, you were hoping she might say ‘mama’ first, but actually, cheese is a pretty good first word. Cheeeeese!

#7: People You Haven’t Seen Since Primary School Know All About Your Baby

Social media is changing the way friendships develop. In the past, you had to put time and effort into your relationships to keep them alive. These days, there are people you might not have spoken to for 20 years, but you still know intimate details about their divorce, as well as where they are having a cocktail right now. And in return, they get to know things about you. As a baby spammer, you know that every Facebook friend you have can probably pick your baby out in a line up. They know her favourite foods, who her best friends are, and what she likes to do at the weekend. She’s a mini celebrity.

#8: Your Phone Is Full

You have no apps on your phone, you have no music files, and you have to delete text messages after reading them. Why? Because your poor phone is crammed full of photographs. They are using up every megabyte of memory, and even though they’re backed up on your laptop and online, you can’t bring yourself to delete them.

Scrolling through them is one of your favourite ways to unwind after a busy day as your baby’s personal paparazzo. Besides, how would you even begin to choose which ones to delete? Sometimes, after a particularly snap happy day, you might be forced to delete a few cutting room floor shots, but even that takes a lot of time – and it breaks your heart. What you really need is a never ending supply of space on your phone.

#9: You Shared A Lot Of Weaning Photos

When it finally came time for your baby to have her first taste of solid food, you couldn’t wait to share it with the world. She ate some apple. Then a bit later she tried some carrot and, well, that was pretty cute too, so you took a photo and uploaded it. And then the next day she had some pasta, and some broccoli, so you uploaded those pictures as well. After all, they were totally different photos. In the end, you had to set up a photo album just for weaning pictures. So far there are 352 photos in it. Who knew there were so many different foods out there?

#10: Your Friends Start Sharing The Baby Spam Hiding Apps

Oh yes, there are apps that deliberately hide photos of babies. I know …. why? But there are. They replace them with photos of kittens or dogs or something else of your choosing. When you start noticing an increase in friends sharing the app, that’s when you might just have oversaturated your newsfeed with baby spam. But don’t worry, not everyone wants to hide your baby pics. Look, your mum just liked another eight of your photos! Keep posting, your public needs you.