To wonder how the human race has lasted so long?

[ProudBadMum]

When baby animals are born they are either left to survive alone or they are born and can pretty much walk and fed them self not long after.

Yet human babies need caring for pretty much all their life by their parents.

Currently feeding a 6 month old who won't sit still due to excitement of food so is kicking the spoon of orange mush everywhere and I'm thinking that if I was a giraffe I wouldn't have to do that.

I've seen kittens that can survive on their own longer than my daughter would

Animal babies sense danger and leave situations. Mine would stay put and chew her toes while a predator creeped up. Probably smile at the predator before her face got eaten.

She doesn't even expect the 'plop' at the end of the barbershop song that I've sang to her from birth.

How did cave parents fight off beasts while stopping their babies eating stones? Surely we shouldn't have lasted this long

My 7 year old wouldn't wake if a tribe ransacked the house never mind if we lived in a cave and a dinosaur ate his family. Her sleep through getting eaten.

Why are we at the top of the food chain when we are pretty much useless for a good few year?!

Survive is maybe the wrong word ... we need each other to thrive.

My four year old would talk a predator into submission or over power it with sheer force of will. She's either going to rule the world or go to jail, we're not quite sure yet! She knows how to lay a fire, can use basic tools and is surprisingly strong so she'd be ok.

Ds (almost 2) is pretty good at problem solving but he exists only on biscuits and bananas so would probably only survive for a few days without us.

Oh meek I watched that, it was hilarious!!! They were such a bunch of complete twats. I would have fucked off and built myself a nice hut by the lake, adopted the dog and lived like a queen.

My brother says if the zombie apocalypse comes he is driving his kids and grand kiddie to my tiny place and leaving them with me as he thinks I'd be able to keep them alive longer, bless.

What's puzzled me is we give birth through a tiny stretchy hole which we hope is stretchy enough. Why aren't we like kangaroos? Tiny baby pops out, crawls up the bush hair and sits in a pouch. If you don't have kids or kids grow up said pouch can be used as a bag for tissues and stuff!! Win win!

Built in baby bag would make more sense. Be easier to get around and foraging easier.

And we're one of the least fertile species too... baffles me how've we've managed so long

I used to wonder this when my colicky newborn would cry and cry no matter how often I breastfed him, or cuddled him, or rocked him, or sang to him. How on earth did they manage back when we had to hunker down on the night and defend ourselves from predators. I mean, he might as well have been ringing a dinner bell.

Still think I'd rather be a giraffe when it comes to dinner time

Evolution isn't a magical menu! It doesn't think so you can't say, "pouches would be great, let's do that". Essentially our brains got bigger and bigger until the point it would be more costly, in terms of maternal mortality, to get any bigger. The rest of the head growing has to happen out of the womb.

Marsupials can't be that great because there hasn't been a lot of parallel evolution. Normally really great adaptations happen more than once!

My comment about having pouches was in jest....you know, a joke.

Well if anyone went past my cave tonight they will know I'm in as baby showed off hef lungs.

They'd probably not dare come in though..

I know it is lighthearted but just in case there is confusion dinosaurs didn't live at the same time than humans, they are much older than us and were extinct when our ancestors appeared (65 millions years vs. 4.5 millions years for our ancestors).

I often thought about marsupials when DS2 was snuggled up in his wrap helping himself to milk on the go.

If nuclear apocalypse did occur planet Earth will be left to cockroaches and my somewhat feral DCs They're experts at foraging for food in the house. The only childproof place is above the kitchen cupboards where I have to climb on to the units to get things down. Anywhere else and they can rearrange the house to find away to climb up. DS2's grip and ability to hold his bodyweight makes me jealous. At 2 he was climbing up climbing frames on condition that he could get his fingertips on there. He can generally smile his way out of trouble but can put on a sprint like Usain Bolt.

I know about dinosaurs. But for this thread we did live amoungst them

Somewhat - mines like that. Also he likes to look for scary monsters in his room... so he can eat them. He'd be pretty much sorted I think...

On a more serious note - isn't the prolonged childhood an advantage as well as a disadvantage since it gives more opportunity for information and skills to be transmitted? It also wasn't just infants that were cared for, there is evidence that older people or those with disabilities/injuries survived past the point they could have supported themselves, suggesting they were cared for by others in their group. Which has an evolutionary as well as ethical advantage in that older people were the pre-writing equivalent of libraries.

Not sure who came up with the theory that the menopause is what gave humans an evolutionary edge as it meant that there were grandmothers to transmit culture, language and skills and ensure that the children survive to the useful age. Fire, weapons etc are useful, but the baby sling was the crucial breakthrough.

Has anyone read on Icelandic babies for centuries.not breast fed but fed on fish

Newborns on fish?!