Im not sure if the title made sense but how babies cry to communicate, did they do that in the like prehistoricy times. Cause I refuse to believe that people who were surrounded by bears, moose, just aggressive/kill you quick wild life, lived with screaming babies around.
*Youre in a mudhut*
Husband- Oh my god theres a bear outside
Wife- What do we do
Baby- WAHHHHHHHH
Husband and Wife- :/
In: 6206
[removed]
A bear isn’t just going to roll up and try to fight a group of 10+ people.
Humans are apex predators, and no animal is going to just charge into a group of them thoughtlessly.
Most animals don’t actively hunt humans. Additionally, many animals hunt by smell, and loud sounds scare them off.
Someone said that human noise is more likely to scare an animal away, and that’s true. The thing to remember also is that most animals have a powerful sense of smell. A bear can smell food sources a mile away. So if they hunted you (most dont hunt humans), your scent would give you away faster than your sound.
I think it’s important to understand there’s a big difference between animals that *hunt* humans versus animals that *kill* humans. Some animals might kill is on rare occasions, but not many will actively seek it out.
A baby crying might alert a mountain lion or a bear of a human’s presence, but most predators are not going out of their way to fight humans. We’re loud, appear large standing on two legs, and have eyes that resemble predators, not prey. We also operate in packs. Oh, and if you kill one of ours, we’ll hunt you down and kill you out of revenge, something that is pretty rare if not totally exceptional. Remember, an animal can’t go to a doctor – so unless they’re really pissed off or really hungry, it’s just not worth it to mess with humans. And the ones that do, don’t survive very long.
So a baby crying might not be optimal but in all honesty, hearing loud human noises might do more to scare animals off than attract them. Especially with their much larger parents sitting right there, ready to fight you with tools and weapons.
Animals don’t go around attacking everything in sight. Every fight they get into is a risk they could get hurt. Getting hurt means losing their ability to hunt. No more hunting means starving to death.
Animals only go after prey they think they have a good chance of taking down with minimal injury risk to themselves. Even in prehistoric times a wolf, lion, etc. could figure out that a loud baby human likely meant there would be a group of larger adult humans nearby with spears and fire. Not worth the risk.
It’s the same reason in modern times if you see a cute bear cub while out hiking, you don’t just go pet it. You get away quickly. Because baby bear means angry momma bear somewhere close.
We are social creatures, and taking care of children and home was a communal activity. Any animal which tried to attack a human baby would have to barge into the middle of our nests and be surrounded by several adults capable of clubbing it to death in an adrenaline-fueled frenzy.
Individual humans can be overpowered by other apex predators (though it often isn’t worth it from a risk-reward standpoint), but not a group of humans in their lair.
Just talking from experience- my first one spent a lot of time on the ground or in a playpen crying. The second one was Ergo’d (a type of baby carrying contraption for you singles out there) and almost never cried. I’d say they spent a lot of time carrying their babies everywhere back then, which seems to be calming for babies. A held baby is a happy baby.
The world isn’t insanely out to get you.
Predators walk past prey all the time and don’t do a thing.
Lions walk past gazelle, stare at them drinking and eating and do nothing.
Sharks swim past fish all the time, and do nothing.
Predators do *not* want to have a fight. That gets them hurt, and then they struggle to recover. They can’t hunt well if they’re injured.
So predators have lots of things that decide if they’re going to hunt.
1) Is the prey much smaller than them? Hard for a rabbit to hurt a wolf, even if it gets a good bite.
-Humans aren’t small. We’re on the large size. The baby is small, but it’s also never alone.
2) Is the prey isolated? It’s easier to pick on one lone animal than a pack.
-Humans, especially the young children, are usually in packs. And coordinated packs.
3) Is it prey they’ve successfully hunted before? You learn by doing after all. If it hasn’t hunted that animal before they’re very wary to do so. Even small things, like snakes, can kill you. And if you haven’t hunted it, or learned to hunt it you’ll leave it alone unless you really need to takes the risk
-Humanity has a very strong tendency to hunt down any specific predator that has managed to kill a human. Precisely for this reason.
4) Is the prey sick or injured? Most predators take advantage of this, or if possible flat out steal the kill from other animals.
-Humanity tends to care for it’s injured, and put them in homes that are fairly sturdy and near other people. So it’s hard to snag the sick and injured.
So overall, humanity doesn’t really fit the needs of predators.
My babies (especially my youngest two) we’re pretty much constantly held. They were either in a wrap, a sling, lying in bed next to me, or being held by me, my husband, one of my 3-4 older kids, some member of my extended family that had popped in to visit, or a friend that was visiting. Until about 4-6 months, they were pretty much NEVER set down. The only exception is that I would give them some “tummy time” each day, I might set them in a bouncy seat next to the bathtub if I was bathing, and sometimes when the weather was nice I’d strip them down to nothing and I’d take my shirt off and we’d go out into the backyard (privacy fence!) and lie on a blanket together under the oak tree. The fresh air on skin felt nice and baby could nurse or exercise or just look around.
Those babies didn’t cry. They’d only cry if they were physically hurt (which was rare) or sometimes if they had a nightmare or something. There was never a need to cry; a small whimper gets all their needs met. And when they realize that everything they want can be had by making a small squeak, they usually don’t get louder.
Latest Answers