Lil’ Neville is 2 months old. We were visiting relatives who have a baby who is 3 weeks younger than Lil’ Neville. The other baby was breastfeeding while Lil’ Neville and I were present. Shortly afterward, Lil’ Neville started acting hungry, even though it hadn’t been very long since her last feeding.
Is it possible that the sight or smell of the other baby nursing made Lil’ Neville hungry, the way seeing or smelling food might make an older person hungry? Or was it just a coincidence?
When my son was in day care there was one baby there who was on a schedule. No exceptions, he got x number of ounces at y times. He would be happy until he saw other babies getting bottles, then he would cry.
I felt sorry for the day care workers, they would do their best to hide the bottles from him. I felt sorry for the baby too.
I think he got hungry when he saw the other babies being fed.
At two months, smell may be a better sensory cue than vision. My two-month-olds (all six of them in their turn) didn’t visually track or focus all that well at that young age, and I have grave doubts they’d recognize a baby being fed from any other visual stimulus of comparable complexity. But the smell, and maybe sounds, of nursing activity? Yeah.
More specific evidence: Of those six kids I mentioned earlier, two were twins. If their momma tried to feed just one, the other would notice from across the room and demand his or her share right now.
But your baby’s mileage may vary.