Touched out
Also called touched-out, feeling touched out
Touched out describes feeling overwhelmed by physical touch after hours of holding, feeding and being climbed on by a baby or small child. Parents use it for the point where they need their body to themselves for a while.
How it's said
Now by the end of the day I honestly feel completely "touched out."
I have a 6-month-old and I love her to death, but I'm starting to feel touched out.
...the cluster feeding, the frequency of feeding, the whole "touched out" thing taken to an extreme level.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Overstimulated is the wider word for too much noise, demand or input at once, and parents often say the two together. A reproductive psychiatrist quoted by TODAY calls being touched out a type of sensory overload.
Where it came from
By 2020 the parenting site Romper was explaining touched out, quoting a psychologist on new mothers who feel touched out from constant closeness to their children.
Writer Amanda Montei took it as the title of her book Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent and Control, discussed in a 2023 TODAY article. Baby brands write about it too: a 2025 Tommee Tippee article calls it a sensory and emotional state where physical contact feels overwhelming or irritating.