Meteorologist applauded for holding her baby mid-broadcast

Presenter ‘was very confident she was going to behave because she just took a long nap’

A meteorologist has been praised by viewers after she delivered a weather forecast while holding her baby.

The moment came last week when Rebecca Shuld, a meteorologist for WDJT-TV, was about to go on air to deliver a warning about bad weather and freezing temperatures in Milwaukee.

The surprise appearance of the meteorologists daughter, Fiona, came after the baby woke up from a nap at the meteorologists’s home – from where she was working due to Covid restrictions.

Ms Shuld told viewers that her 13-week old daughter was “indifferent” to temperatures as low as -19 c (-3 f) that were forecast for the midwestern US state last week.

“She’s prepared. She’s got one of her good thick blankies here for that cold weather that’s coming up tonight,” Ms Schuld said. “I thought she could help me with tonight’s first weather that’s going to be plenty unpleasant, right?”

Many applauded Ms Shuld and WDJT, an affiliate of CBS News, for the debut of Fiona during the weather forecast, with one person saying: “I think it’s great that her company allows her to work from from home and to care for her infant at the same time. And what a cute baby”.

“Loved seeing Rebecca Schuld on the air with her daughter, Fiona,” another viewer wrote. “Rebecca is working from home right now and Fiona had just woken up. They are so sweet together!”

Ms Shuld told Yahoo Life at the weekend that she had returned from maternity leave and was working at home when her daughter woke up from a nap moments before she was about to appear on air.

“I was just minutes away from having my next weather broadcast, and my baby had just woken up, [and] I go over to my greenwall. I’m holding her and our producer is like, ‘Oh, your baby, is she gonna make an appearance?’”

Ms Shuld said she “was very confident she was going to behave because she just took a long nap so I knew she’d be happy. I said, ‘sure!’”

The meteorologist added that she felt guilty “for a split second about it and I don’t know why”, even though many viewers and fans of her baby had hailed her.

“When I sat and thought about it, it’s like, why am I guilty? This is real life. This is what everyone else is also doing,” said Ms Shuld. “They work, their kids are sick, or their kids are crying in the background. It’s always a challenge when you have kids in the mix, but that’s what so many of us are doing everyday. So why are we hiding them?”

She added in a tweet: “This is how you sneak in a wind chill advisory without upsetting the viewers”.

“We’re shining a light on what real life actually looks like, trying to do it all and how Covid has changed the way we conduct work. And we’re crushing it every day.”