This paper situates Ferenczi’s concept of the “wise baby” in relation to Jean Laplanche’s concept of “seduction” in order to rethink the “wise baby” as one possible outcome of the adult-infant relationship. Drawing on Laplanche’s translational model of the unconscious - and specifically, his delineation of the “urge to translate1” - this paper argues that the “wise baby” names a particular variation of ordinary seduction. This paper draws on Laplanche’s concept of the “original hermeneut” in order to specify why the biopsychical encounter makes every baby hermeneutic, but only some babies “wise.”