Most nicknames describe the baby. This one describes what his mother could finally do once he came home. Niloofar Hajaty calls her son โNafas,โ the Farsi word for breath, and the story behind it follows a mom from five hard weeks to a winter day in the rain. It is for the parent counting days beside a hospital bed, the new mom learning when to step back, and anyone expecting who wonders how to protect a child and still let them go. Iconic Glam Kids Editorial
If you are a preemie mom, you know some version of the waiting. For Niloofar Hajaty, it lasted five weeks. Her son, Aras Sazegari, was born prematurely and spent those weeks in the hospital before he could come home. When she wrote about him for our March 2025 Baby and Toddler issue, she explained the name she began using for him afterward: โI refer to him as โNafas,โ a term that translates to โBreathโ in Farsi.โ
Keep reading
Read the full story, free
Our stories come from the pages of Iconic Glam Kids®. Add your name and email to keep reading this one, and the ones still to come.
Thank you. You’re on the list.
Get every new issue with the Digital Library
First-year rates, billed yearly ($36 for Reader, $60 for Member). Cancel online anytime. Compare plans
Already subscribed? Enter your name and email above to keep reading.
She gave the reason in the same answer. โDuring his time in the hospital, I found it incredibly challenging to breathe. However, once he returned home, everything improved significantly, and his presence completed our lives. I could breathe easily after having him home with us.โ
A single word holds both halves of that experience: how tight those weeks felt, and the release that came after. So we have told her story the way breath moves, in and out, with some weather along the way.
In: Five Weeks
Of the hospital weeks, Niloofar shared one thing, and it was about her own body rather than his: she found it hard to breathe. For parents whose babies begin life in the hospital, that may be the most familiar detail in this story. It is also an honest one. She did not write that she stayed calm or strong. She wrote that it was hard.
There is permission in that for other parents. You can love your baby completely and still feel as if the air has gone thin until he is home.
Out: A Little Boy at Home
By the time we featured him, Aras was 17 months old, and the picture Niloofar drew of him was full of motion and sound. Early on, she described him as โsuper kind, patient, and friendly,โ a boy who โalways smiles no matter the situationโ and loves being around other kids.
He started talking early. At a recent visit, she wrote, his doctor was surprised by how advanced his speech was for a child not yet 18 months old. He copies nearly everything. When his father coughs loudly, Aras fake-coughs and says โdaddy.โ When he hears his grandfather snoring, he pretends to snore and says โgrandpa.โ He loves music and has a toy piano he calls โDing Ding.โ He is at ease in front of a camera, too, because his mom is the one who takes his professional photos, including the ones in our magazine.
Niloofar was open about her own side of the day. She is a scientist who enjoys her work, and she wrote that balancing the roles of wife, working mother and homemaker has been โmore challenging than I had anticipated prior to becoming a parent.โ She paints, camps in a tent and rides mountain bikes. Nature, she wrote, is something she deeply appreciates, and she was already passing that on.
The First Rain
Her favorite memory from that winter is a small one, and it is where this story turns. She was worried he might catch a cold. She let him experience the rain for the first time anyway.
He wore a rain jacket, boots and a hat. โI cannot adequately convey the extent of his delight and enjoyment in this new experience,โ she wrote.
The joy was evident in his eyes as he gazed at the sky, feeling the rain on his face and hands.
Niloofar, Arasโs mom
Read that beside the nickname. The same mother who once found it hard to breathe while her son was in the hospital chose, a little over a year later, to let cold rain fall on his face. She did not drop her caution. She dressed him for the weather. Then she stepped back and let him have the sky.
A Moment for Parents
Niloofar worried about a cold, dressed him in a rain jacket, boots and a hat, and said yes. Is there a small, safe experience you have been keeping from your child because of a worry you carry from an earlier, harder time? What would it take to prepare for it, and then let it happen?
Rain Stories at Bedtime
The rain did not stay outside. Their nightly tradition, she wrote, is for Niloofar to tell Aras stories about rainy days when he can play outside in the rain, and about the animals that look for shelter during a downpour, before he falls asleep. It is a lovely detail: a child who once had to wait five weeks to come home now drifts off to stories of weather and wild things finding a safe place to rest.
For spring, she wrote that she was looking forward to him spending more time in nature, taking in a season full of โcolors, scents, and sights.โ Our March 2025 issue even carried a photo of Aras watering plants.
What One Preemie Mom Learned About Letting Go
Some might expect a preemie mom to hold on tighter than most. Niloofarโs advice points the other way. She believes children grow happier and stronger when they meet the world directly, and she wrote that she would gladly encourage Aras to explore nature again and again, because such experiences โcan strengthen both his body and spirit, helping him to adapt more effectively to the world around him.โ
If You Areโฆ Whatever the Weather
If you are expecting, no one can promise your baby will come straight home. If that happens, Niloofarโs story is a reminder that those weeks do end, and ordinary days, with pretend coughs and bedtime stories, can follow.
If you are in the early months after a hospital stay, wanting to hold on tight is understandable. Protection and exploration are not opposites. A rain jacket and a first rainy day can go together.
If you are living something like this, notice the moments you can breathe again and let them count. Then, a little at a time, let your child meet the world.
In Her Words
For other moms of babies his age, she offers this: โThe most important point I have learned from having my first child is to let them explore their surroundings without too much of our involvement. Let them see, touch, eat, and experience the world around them by themselves. It makes them happier and stronger, I believe, due to my own experience.โ (Niloofar Hajaty, Arasโs mom)
From the Editorโs Desk
Positive Discipline asks parents to have faith in their children and to avoid rescuing them from experiences they can handle. Children grow a sense of โI canโ by doing, not by watching us do it for them. That is not the same as stepping away from safety. Positive Discipline also talks about taking time for training: we prepare, we teach, and then we allow. Niloofarโs first rain is a clear example. The rain gear was the preparation. Letting him feel the weather was the trust.
For a toddler, this can be as simple as letting them carry the watering can, even if some water lands on the floor, or letting them touch wet grass before you wipe their hands. Get ready together, step back one pace, and watch what they discover. Every child deserves the chance to meet the world with their own hands, and every parent deserves to breathe while they do.
Celebrating kids . Honoring parents
Behind every little star. Every shining child has a guiding light behind them.
โIn every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.โ
JOHN MUIR
ICONIC GLAM KIDS | NOTES EDITION | ARAS SAZEGARI | AGE 17 MONTHS | Photograph by his mom
Aras Sazegari and Niloofar Hajaty were featured in the March 2025 Baby and Toddler issue of Iconic Glam Kids (Issue 11), the magazine for children and the parents who believe in them first.
Behind every little star is a parent who believed first.