Maybe the baby’s just a bobble head.

Unless the baby looked malnourished or uncared for, I wouldn’t worry. Babies are far more resilient, bendy and adaptable than we give them credit for.

Also, unless there’s a developmental issue, a seven month old would easily be able to hold their head unassisted. Is it possible the baby was just trying to look at things?

Seven months?

The baby was just fine.

By 3, they can support themselves enough for safety in that kind of setup.

Not that nothing bad can happen, it’s just not likely.

For real, even under 3 months, you’ll see some ability to move the head around as it gets closer to that mark.

Assuming you’re accurate about the baby being at least 7 months, those little buggers wobble around all the time they can. The whole world is vibrant and unfiltered for the most part, so it isn’t too unusual for one to get fixated in one direction either because there’s something interesting, or to take a break from looking around.

Definitely not anything to worry about.

Infants can generally support their own neck at six months.

At that point, just based on your description, I personally think a child of that age would be able to either stop lolling their head or fuss if they were uncomfortable unless they were to a point of significant distress.

First thing you should do is find a young priest, and an old priest.

As you correctly wrote newborns/very small babies heads need to be supported urgently - the head to body ratio of babies is very different from older kids and sadly the neck muscles are not that developed in utero. (Dark note: One of the reasons it was not uncommon - and still happens extremely rarely with underqualified healthcare providers- that newborns were sometimes decapitated when trying to facilitate a forceps birth 70+x years ago) Failing to do so can lead to various injuries, from muscular overextension (painful,can lead to chronic issues), ligament or nerve damage (can paralyse) or even vascular damage. I have seen a kid who suffered a fatal vascular damage from a sudden “falling back” of the head after insufficient support was provided and two more with rather complicated injuries - while these cases are super rare,they happen. (And kids are not all the same. My own kid came out and lifted its head 2h after birth and tried to roll onto its belly before we left hospital. Others take months just for the first thing)

When they get older this becomes less of an issue, but they are still suspectable to another thing: External force and exhaustion. It’s a big difference between a kid sitting in a stroller or being on a flat surface and holding its own head and a kid being forced to stabilise its head against external movement by the carrier moving around, especially over longer periods of time. This can,in some rare cases even lead to the classic “shaken kid” syndrome (where repeated acceleration and deceleration rupture small vessels within babies brain,leading to a often fatal haemorrhage within the skull). I am fairly sure I read a case report once that reported about a case of a kid who suffered this while Mom was jogging with a unsuitable backpack like carrier, but sadly as PubMed is down at the moment (thank you,Orange and Elmo) I can’t find it.

My first slept like this a lot. Lots of folks like you stopped and commented to tell me that it looked dangerous. Thanks for your concern but it’s just the way the baby cookie crumbles, sometimes.

What you need to do is take a sharp knife, remove the head, then stitch it back on in place more snuggly.

I remember a friend of mine becoming a mother and saying, “Yeah the doctor said never to let her head go back too far and a split second later my daughter suddenly decided to fucking wrench their neck as far back as it could go”