Soap Tropes: Biggest Baby Switches In Daytime

On Days of Our Lives, Nicole thinks her baby boy died when, in reality, biological dad Eric is unwittingly raising his own natural son Jude with Sloan, who knows he’s Nicole’s, but is using the tot to hold onto Eric. To be fair, Nicole once tried the exact same trick with Sydney, Sami and EJ’s biological daughter, who Nicole passed off as her and EJ’s. And it was only a few years ago that Xander switched Sarah’s dead baby with Brady and Kristen’s living one. Of course, she grew up to be the super-brat Rachel, so Sarah really dodged a bullet there when she had to give Rachel back. Baby switches are one of the common soap tropes…nothing new on daytime TV. Here are some of our favorites.

The Young and the Restless

Victoria (Amelia Heinle) just learned that Eve Nicole, the baby she thought died shortly after birth was actually a decoy. Her living daughter, Claire (Hayley Erin) was kidnapped by her aunt Jordan (Colleen Zenk), and raised to hate the Newmans. (Little did Jordan know that growing up in that family achieves the same effect.) A similar thing happened to Lauren (Tracey Bregman) over thirty years ago. Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) kidnapped her baby, Scotty, and passed him off as Sheila’s child with Lauren’s ex, Scott (Peter Barton), while slipping Lauren a baby she named Dylan, who died before his first birthday from meningitis.

All My Children/One Life to Live/General Hospital

It took two shows to pull off this pair of baby switches. First, Bianca’s (Eden Riegel) daughter, Miranda, ended up with Babe (Alexa Havins) as Bess, while Babe’s son, AJ, went off to Llanview as Kelly’s (Heather Tom) bundle of joy, Ace.

A few years later, General Hospital‘s Sam (Kelly Monaco), thought her son, Jason Daniel Morgan, was dead, while he was actually living in Llanview as Tea’s tot, Victor. Tea’s first clue that little Vic wasn’t hers came when he was diagnosed with Thalassemia, an illness most common in Mediterranian families like the Cassadines. Hey, does Danny still have it? Or is it one of those temporary, congenital conditions GH is so famous for? But baby switches go way, way back on GH.

Laura (Genie Francis) herself was a switched baby. She spent the first 12 or so years of her life as Laura Vining. But then her mom, Lesley (Denise Alexander), learned that her pronounced stillborn baby was alive, confronted the Vinings, and demanded her daughter back. A conflicted Laura ran away from home, joined a cult, and decided she wanted to live with Lesley, after all. And, except for her former “sister,” Amy (Shell Kepler), who showed up and was more or less adopted by Laura’s new parents, Lesley and Rick (Chris Robinson), the original Vining parents were never mentioned again.

As the World Turns

Teen-age Gwen (Jennifer Landon) was pregnant with a baby she agreed to give up for adoption to Rosanna (Cady McClain) and Craig (Hunt Block). Jennifer (Jennifer Ferrin) was pregnant with Craig’s baby, and determined to keep Craig from his child at all costs. Gwen gave birth to sickly Billy. Jennifer gave birth to healthy Johnny. Craig pulled a little switch-a-roo. When the truth came out, Craig ended up with no son at all.

Baby Beth — and Switched Baby Stories — Are Alive

Bold and the Beautiful got in on the baby-swap stories when Dr. Reese Buckingham (Wayne Brady) made a deal that turned everyone’s life upside down. He committed a crime of opportunity when Hope (Annika Noelle) gave birth alone on Catalina Island at the same time another woman gave birth to a baby that died. Dr. Buckingham swapped the babies, sold Hope and Liam’s (Scott Clifton) healthy daughter to Taylor (then, Hunter Tylo) and Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) so that little Kelly could have a sister.

Slowly, the facts came out about Reese’s duplicity. Thomas (Matthew Atkinson) was determined to keep Hope away from her daughter so that she would not reunite with Liam. While Thomas had no problem lying, fortunately, his son, Douglas (Henry Joseph Samiri) told Liam the truth. “Baby Beth is alive,” the little boy said. Liam realized Douglas was right and he told Hope the truth, exposing Thomas’s machinations. Liam and Hope reunited with Beth. They were a happy family…for a while. B&B submitted two episodes that bookended the story — Hope’s delivery and the reunion moments — at the Daytime Emmys, which earned them the gold that year.

Q&A

While some of the switched babies were born at the same time as the baby they ended up swapped with, an equal number were traded with outside dead or nearly dead infants. Uhm… where do those come from? Is there some black market in soap opera towns with a bunch of tiny corpses in the freezer? Is there a warehouse of ill infants whose parents just dump them without a trace? No birth certificates? No hospital registration? Are they cloned in a lab, which is why they’re sickly to begin with? This is a mystery no soap trope has yet to explain!