[ELiF] How did humanity survive in nature for over 100,000 years in nature with such helpless, useless babies that work as beacons for predators with the amount of noise they make?

Mother of three here. I don't know about others, but my babies actually didn't cry all that much.

A lot of the crying they did do was associated with a modern lifestyle e.g. changing nappies, dressing, being bathed, travelling in the car.

Outside of these things, letting babies breastfeed on demand in my (obviously personal) experience meant any crying was pretty minimal. I also slept with a co-sleeper side cot right by the bed and would wake on my own as soon as my babies began to stir, almost always before they did, when it was time to feed them. I didn't co-sleep in the same bed, but many parents who do so also find their babies can basically find their own way to the boobs, even as newborns.

I imagine primitive people would have spent most of their time holding their babies within arm's reach and feeding often for comfort, so crying might not have been frequent.

Humans, as social animals, would have lived in large family groups for protection, too - so that would have been a significant factor.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread