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?

I was reading the other day about how in the past newborn babies used to be fed 'pap' which is mushed up bread and water or 'gruel' as a type of early formula. Often they'd be given alcohol to settle them too!
And I was reading that sadly working women in the early victorian era often used to drug their babies with laudanum so they would sleep all day alone at home whilst the mother went to work.
I also know much earlier on in history there was a period when it was thought harmful for infants to be exposed to sunlight... leading many to end up dying from rickets.
I do wonder how the human species survived...

@Theredfoxfliesatmidnight yeah to look at it another way, I wonder what they would make of our way of doing it, remove the cot bumpers, don't pre make up bottles etc we are given so much information now, I suppose the infant mortality rate was higher back then or maybe not.

It makes sense. Like why babies cry when we put them down. Their ‘cave man’ instinct is telling them they’re not safe. They don’t know they’re in a safe bedroom with no animals at the door!

Me too, I wonder how I would cope?
Would I be tough or complain the whole time or just get on with it,,,,
I do this with the olden days too, wondering what my house would look like back then based on my income equivalent to back then.

No judgement here, much 😂

Are you talking about homo sapiens? Homo neanderthalensis? Homo erectus? Another species?

What time period? What geographical location?

You'd cope because you'd have survived long enough to have had the child in the first place. And you'd have a community who had taught you how to survive from the minute you could walk. You wouldn't know any different so wouldn't complain.

I expect they (or other group members) carried babies most of the time in a sling/wrap type arrangement like in traditional societies today.

Most babies would have died before the age of one anyway .

There haven’t been any UK deaths linked to them and I think only one that I’m aware of, ever.

Of course they officially go against the Lullaby Trust guidelines for a clear cot but I wouldn’t personally call them dangerous.

@TrailOfTime I don't use them for sleeping, I use it for him to lie in when he is awake and he is just chilling on the couch next to me.

Sorry what time period is "the olden days"? 1850s? 1050s? 650s?

"Cavemen times" or "the olden days" could mean anything, they aren't defined pre/historical time periods.

What time period are you imagining?

Omg I have often wondered this! How did they keep them contained in the caves when they became mobile? My toddler would simply wake up in the middle of the night and fuck off.

Sorry for some reason your post had me visualising a hamster eating her own babies. I do think we are closer to cavemen than they were to animals.

I would suggest you look at one of the Flintstones cartoons. I think that much of what you wonder about is clearly explained there.

For example, a cradle type thing for their baby is rocked by a small dinosaur.

N.B. Don't bother with the film 'The Flintstones' it is inaccurate and rather sanitises the whole stone age period.

Probably baby reins made from leather tied to a very heavy large rock.

@dreamfield so olden days for me would be Oliver Twist period or a bit before that, cave men days, well I have no idea what time period that was.

Ok, but when you say cavemen are you talking about modern humans or neanderthals?

Usually cavemen days refers to the end of the last Ice Age 12,000 years ago and earlier.

I personally be thinking of both because Neanderthals were human too and co-existed and interbred with Homo Sapiens sapiens (modern man).
Most Northern Europeans have neanderthal DNA.

Right, but neanderthals died out about 40,000 years ago. So if you're picturing 12,000 years ago it was modern humans in pretty sophisticated societies.

@dreamfield I think Neanderthals but maybe both, to be fair I haven't given much thought about the time periods per se, just the logistics of how they would operate in their environment but focussing on babies etc.
then I go down the rabbit hole of what they must of thought when their belly's started getting bigger and during labour. And the sex part, how did they figure that out, where all the parts go lol

Talking of food I wonder how people discovered what food could be eaten safely? And how you can prepare it to be edible? Trial and error and accident, brought on by necessity being the mother of invention I imagine. A slow process.

I remember reading something in a book called Cod about the Pilgrim Fathers nearly dying of starvation in what became the USA despite the fact that the sea was teeming with lobster etc because, to them, it seemed like an impossible thing to eat!

They didn't. Many human populations (not Homo sapiens, but other related hominids) existed in small populations before dying out and becoming extinct. It took 90,000 years for the relative few of us that survived into adulthood to go from hunter gatherer to agriculture, 8,000 years to industrialisation. All of it in service of improved life expectancy.