How did cave women look after their babies?

[Lorddenning1]

Ok so I have a 6 week old baby and he has lots of stuff, a crib, Moses basket, cot and a a pod/nest, this is all for sleeping, don't get me started on a pram car seat, feeding stuff...
Back in the caveman times how did the ladies take care of the babies, like in winter how did they keep them warm, how did they keep the babies quiet so they didn't get eaten or killed by other tribes. What about nappies, was colic around then?

I often sit and wonder about these things, also how babies were made, did they just figure it out and then make the connection that everything they had sex, 9 months later a baby would appear,,,

Does anyone else think about these things or do I have cabin fever and need to get out more?

Every time*

You could watch a few film writer ideas on that
Clan of the Cave Bear
Quest for Fire
10,000 BC
Alpha
Early Man (Aardman style like Chicken Run)

How do other animals care for offspring? I'm guessing cave woman did that

Does anyone else think about these things or do I have cabin fever and need to get out more?

No and yes

Congratulations on your LO

I thought about this about nappies

They most likely carried them around, kept them close and shoved them on the boob every time they moved.

They would never have put them down and left them alone. Chances are if they did they would get eaten by something.

Looking at tribal society now (not quite as primitive as cave men) babies/children are raised collectively by the women in the group. So you would have had lots of support. I found this interesting to and have watched a few documentary on the subject. But more on tribal cultures rather then as far back as cavemen.

No it's not something I have ever thought about, but will now probably spend the evening pondering

We weren’t animals even then. Cave living isn’t that primitive. People live in caves today.

I think about it. I think we don't have to look too far actually - look at some of the more isolated, unmodernised peoples in the world and I don't suppose it's changed all that much. Some of the herder people in Siberia for example still live in teepees, and yes, they have access to plastic goods and machine-made fabrics for clothes etc, but I imagine the way they handle their babies hasn't changed much for many thousands of years.

I saw a doco once in which dogs licked babies bums to clean them. I guess babies had an earlier introduction to toilet training as they were taught to squat and had a better grasp of bodily functions earlier.

Probably used a papoose or sling to carry babies on the front or back.

I don’t think cave people had to worry about car seats.

I didn’t buy most of the stuff you mentioned. No moses basket, pod or feeding stuff. I used cloth nappies, although, thankfully, they didn’t need to be washed by hand.

I don't know about cavewomen but I know that in the middle ages in terms of nappies they used to put the baby in a wooden crib filled with straw then they would just change the straw each morning.
They also dressed babies in nightshirt type things open at the bottom.
Obviously they could use cloth type nappies if wealthier but poorer people just used straw on the ground/crib.
Thanks to a national trust volunteer who told me this info!

Imaginary cave woman might well ask the question how on earth does modern woman look after a child! No female community, no knowledgeable female elders on hand, and what you also have to go out and have a job!!? 😁 I'm not sure that the fact we have snuzpods now makes up for having tens of experienced female helpers on hand, whose job is to take care of you and help with your child.

It doesn't look at cave women, but there is a lovely book I read or re-read when each of mine were babies called 'Our Babies, Ourselves' by Meredith Small. She does a fascinating job of looking at how little babies have changed over millennia, and there is even has a line in the book that your post reminds me of. Something about how babies remain the same while parenting fads and equipment race by them in sequence across the years. There are also sections looking at how 4 or 5 different cultures look after their babies, which are fascinating. We are all having the same essential experience yet it can feel so different.

Cave women had jobs aplenty to do with day to day survival. Hunting, gathering, curing skins to make leather, fire tending, cooking from scratch, hauling water by hand, nursing the ill, building shelter, driving off predators…

I am ALWAYS thinking about this sort of thing. Not so much about babies but I'll be on a walk in the countryside or mountains and imagine how it might have been and how they would choose where to stop and find food etc

Hahaha yes, I was thinking something very similar to this the other day.

And is our modern way of parenting better? So many tiny babies go into nursery now so mum can work. No judgement as I know this can be a necessity. But babies would have been cared for by mums then. How is that worse or awful

Oh yes! But baby would be with them. Kind of like a SAHM now.

They don’t know if it was mums who did most of it. Prehistoric human societies are largely unknown as no written records exist.

Studying Bonobos they have crèches where a few adolescent mums care for the babies along with their own babies- they breast feed any baby. Leaving the mature, higher status females to do important socio-political things like bossing around young males, leading troupes into the forest to gather food, identify where next to move the group to, to fight other groups of apes…

Maybe or maybe not. They don’t really know.

I can't think about cave women without remembering that female skeletons regularly have significant defensive injuries - broken forearms & the like.

The men would have been horrible, no social norms or deterrents - or much looser ones at best - to stop them attacking women & kids.

I think you'd keep your babies very close, quiet & entrust them to other women.

I know that but in the cave man erra we were very primative with basic tools hygiene wasn't high on our lists and we were closer to our animal descendents than us as we are now. Do you think they would have wasted animal hide on nappies? Making a nest for baby is more likely than fashioning a crib. Even in Tudor times the poor slept on sacking on the floor and waste was thrown in the streets.
I'm sure leaves have been used to wipe in many cultures far back ...and even apes use tools.