baby-wise

baby-wise (comparative more baby-wise, superlative most baby-wise)

1. In the manner of a baby.
   • 1913, Alfred Ollivant, “The Faithful Servant”, in The Independent, volume 75:

     Slowly his huge and inarticulate fist traveled to his eye, and stayed there baby-wise. / The young men of today do not cry. They turn Syndicalist instead; dimly conscious in the darkness of the wall that stands between them and the largesse of life that they feel to be their right, and flinging against that wall in an impotent fury of words and blows.

2. As one would a baby.
   • 1885, Mary Noailles Murfree, The prophet of the Great Smoky mountains, by Charles Egbert Craddock, page 108:

     She clutched it in great haste, wrapped her apron about it, and carrying it baby-wise, ran fleetly off, casting apprehensive glances over her shoulder.

   • 1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter XXIII, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 223:

     He cuddled it, baby-wise, but he looked up from it often to curse with an astonishing utter abandon straight at the noses of his captors.