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 did say I was picturing from 12,000 years ago back to earlier….as in from the distant darkest past up to 12,000 years ago so that would include millions of years ago. Ta

It’s not quite caveman times but read Ann Baer Medieval Woman. It’s a year in a life of a normal medieval mum and just so wonderful in its minutiae

You can get an idea by looking at isolated tribal societies today - babies are generally strapped to them for most of the time. Failing that watch the flintstones

Babies and toddlers would sleep surrounded by people some of whom would be awake, I doubt anyone would let them wander off

She was talking about an awake and mobile toddler, not nap time
Besides, that’s what was done in ancient times, women weavers would tie baby reins to their toddlers and attach it to a bunch of stone loom weights. So not too far fetched to think the idea might have come up earlier.

I'd also add my DDs didn't have all this stuff, just a pram with a carry cot, slept in it supposedly in reality they coslept, cloth nappies too. Not so different

This is the sort of thing I would think about. These questions come up, think even we had a centaur baby thread once.
I watched a mother gorilla at the zoo with her little baby and she held it all the time but did dangle it from one arm at a height a few times. I'm guessing cave women were a bit more on it.
@rickandmorts oh God and the cliff edges and little stones they could choke on.

Through most of human history and in hunter gather societies today babies are carried and fed almost constantly.

She mentioned the middle of the night. Night waking was very normal until the industrial revolution. The expectation of sleeping for 6 - 8 hours at night is a modern phenomena. Evolutionary biologists suggest the reason for different sleep patterns in different people at different ages is for this very reason so some one could be awake at all times to feed the fire and keep the others safe from predators. It is likely this was the young adults, which is why we see a ' late shift" sleep phase in older adolescents.

I always wonder stuff like this.

I imagine that the death rate amongst babies then was huge to be honest.

Yes, the nomadic hunter gatherers did and do. Caves would just be stopping off camps used for a few weeks at a time.

Some prehistoric cave dwellers were settled, especially along the coasts where fishing was the thing- so things could have been different as they were not nomadic.

Oh I see, I saw the night time thing but thought she was talking about all the time the toddler would be awake, day and night,

The sleep shift hypothesis is really interesting,

Is your toddler not scared of the dark?
I'm sure that's why lots of little people are scared of the dark.

Toddlers also like bland food stops them eating dodgy plants

Yes finding safe things to eat and how they did that is fascinating too.

I was brought up in a 1 room hut in a developing country and until I was 4 and DM had no kit at all. She breast fed, we co slept! Loads of cultures don't use nappies even now.

This fascinates me! Who was the first one to realise grinding wheat gave us flour and from that add yeast, heat it up and make bread!

This. Babies are closely observed so parents are able read the signs of when babies need to toilet.

I imagine that animals got accidentally burned in a fire (☹️) and somehow someone tried to eat it and found it to taste nice? But how they made that leap 🤔? Maybe people ate raw meat before then? I mean meat eaters find their mouths watering these days because of previous ingestion I presume but you wouldn't have that association if you'd never eater cooked meat before.

I didn't have most of your stuff! Cuddled my baby/carried her and breastfed her a lot. Body heat would keep babies warm I guess.

The Red Tent is a good book featuring women and motherhood in biblical times.

Also baby pods are not the instant death machines MN loves to paint them as.

Although infant mortality was high among hunter gatherers (25% maybe?), I'm sure I've read that it actually got worse through agriculture and then industrialisation - presumably through higher birth rates, poor feeding practices, less ability for mothers to carry babies with them and higher levels of disease.
For example, hunter gatherer women would maybe only have 4 babies in their lifetimes, and would carry and breastfeed each baby for around 3 years. Whereas once people settled, babies would be put down more, fed things other than breastmilk, and women were pregnant and gave birth more often.

(All quite broad generalisations and I wouldn't want to cite my sources but here is what I've picked up from reading etc.)

What interests me is that babies were raised much more collectively. I think that is how we are meant to raise kids. No wonder it can seem so hard in modern times. Also children would play in groups alongside their parents whilst they worked. There wasn't an expectation to intensively entertain your child.

Also they had bigger birth spacing due to extended breastfeeding on demand (and less calorific diets) so in lots of hunter gatherer societies 4 years is the norm. Not saying this is better and modern life is very different but it is interesting and validating if you didn't feel ready for another child when your first was two.

Obviously babies would have died but much higher infant mortality comes with the first cities as hygiene took a nose dive. Once farming came in people could have more children but were actually less healthy. Living closely to animals and other people leads to disease.

I love pondering things like this. I think it about giving birth, periods and bathing in winter and things like that as well.

Yes, I read some of the lower birth rate per woman in pre-agricultural times was due to malnutrition affecting fertility. So their bodies would either not get pregnant or miscarry.

This. I've lived with Sherpa people in the Himalayas in the early 90s before the internet homogenised everyone. Babies were carried on the mothers' fronts, then backs pretty much from birth. They were supported by a length of cloth tied at the front and stayed in this position while the women worked in the fields. Nappies weren't used and babies were held up after meals or before and after naps to pee or poo. They quickly adapted and performed to order. Most were dry overnight before they were 2. At night baby and mother co-slept, often with the baby in a hand woven basket made from thin strips of bamboo. they were put on the breast on demand, and when the time for weaning came, mothers would often pre-chew food before offering it to the baby. The vast majority of little ones I saw were walking before their first birthday. They toddled about farmyards, often with steep drops nearby, but everybody kept an eye on them and nobody perished.
Not cave people I know, but I imagine it wasn't so different. Not an idyllic life though as child mortality was high - most women had lost at least one baby. Nearly always through dehydration following D&V. The standard treatment suggested by shaman was to feed them yak butter!