Baby
A baby symbolizes new beginnings and opportunity. Holding a smiling baby means joyful news or a smooth start to a new project.
A baby stands for whatever is newly begun and still growing. It is tempting to tie it straight to pregnancy, but lore sees every newborn thing — a new project, a new bond, a newly found talent — as a baby. The baby's expression and how you treated it decide the reading.
Readings by Situation
Holding a smiling baby
Auspicious. Happy news or a new opportunity arriving in your arms; if something has been in preparation, this is when it settles into place. A plump, healthy-looking baby makes the reading better still.
A baby crying without stopping
A signal that something needs tending. Look for what you started and left alone, or a relationship you have been putting off. If soothing worked, it can still be set right in time.
Giving birth
Something long carried finally takes form. Where pregnancy is planned it may be read as a conception dream, but otherwise it points to work coming into the world — a publication, an opening, a launch.
Carrying or raising a baby entrusted to you
Responsibility is growing. If it felt heavy, take on only what you can carry; if it felt warm, that responsibility is what will enlarge your own standing.
It is easy to read every baby dream as a conception dream, but conception dreams more typically arrive around the time of pregnancy as vivid animals, fruit, or jewels. Reading a baby dream as a dream about 'what has just begun' fits far more situations.