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Birth is an event that more than any other mobilizes the figures of the ideal in a family. In this article the Author shows that the ideal that carries the child has as another face the radical strangeness of the baby. The family psychic functioning organized around the cradle is based on this antagonism. Using clinical vignettes from the method of observation of the baby according to Esther Bick, the Author shows the stakes of this intimate confrontation in the family during the first days after the birth. This problem, which affects the mother very directly, can only be resolved by taking into consideration the actual place taken by other members of the family, especially the father and grandparents. The figure of the ideal is thus central around birth, it then evolves following the vicissitudes of the family and the development of the baby.