It seems to me that making a lot of noise when you are helpless is a sure way to attract predators. Human babies seem to me to do this more than other animals, in fact, crying out loud is the very first thing we do, so much so that it has become iconic. And we don’t stop doing it for months or even years. Other species, primates included, judging by the programs I saw on TV, are not so loud. Not even apex predators, who could perhaps afford being conspicuous. What drove humans to evolve this behaviour? What are the evolutionary advantages?
As an aside: the crying baby also forces the mother to remain constantly close. Any link here to the prevalence of patriarchy in human societies? Is it the babies’ fault?
Separation from their mothers does lead to crying as you noticed. I don’t think humans evolved with babies kept apart from their mothers as much as is done today. Hunger also leads to crying, something resolved more quickly in the early days of the species. I also think wet and soiled diapers lead to crying, another modern practice. So perhaps babies don’t cry as much and as loudly as we tend to think, and not as much of a detriment to survival in evolutionary terms.
Surely it would affect the cultural practices involving patriarchy.
Yeah babies who are being attended to don’t generally spend that much of their day bawling. Oh there’s the 4 to 8 week evening fussies phase during crying can last despite meeting obvious needs, but mostly if needs are met they stop.
On the individual basis of course crying is selected for, especially if it is a risky environment for crying. The baby that cries when danger may be around is going to be the baby that gets the breast shoved in its mouth to shut it up while the quiet child goes hungry.
Other newborns squawk and cry too. I suspect some formula could be figured out relating how big the risk is to the group and how dependent the newborn is and infant mortality rate over an evolutionarily significant period of time to how loud a newborn’s cry is.
Do you know of any other animal that cries so much and so loud as human babies do?
I heard of cry babies who cry all night despite having caring parents who cater to all their needs as well as they can. And I heard also that babies cry again a lot when teething, which evolutionary speaking does not make sense to me.
Most primates. A large variety of other species. Of course our ears are tuned to human baby cries and not the ultrasonic ones mice make, for example.
You “hear” lots of things. Reality however is that there are infinitesimally few babies who cry all night despite all their needs being met, even though it seems that way sometimes.
Looking for examples though I found this article that may be of interest!
Interesting article, thank you. So 17 years ago the jury was still out, but my observation is not completely baseless. From your article:
“I’ve never seen any chimpanzees in the first three months of life be inconsolable.”
Though primates cry more than I assumed, they cry less than humans and can be shut up by picking them up and feeding them. This does not always work with us.
With regard to the risk of attracting predators - I think for a long time the human strategy has not been to hide from predators, at least not where children are raised. Rather, we organize in communities that defend against predators. A community’s location is usually not a secret, so making noise may not be dangerous at all.
Whereas a compelling reason to seek attention is competition with siblings for parental resources. Our parents share half their genes with all their children, and want to divide resources evenly. We also share half our genes with our siblings, and will favor them over strangers; but of course we have 100% of our own genes. So there is a constant battle among siblings to demand more resources for themselves, resisted by parents who want to divide resources equally. The same principle obviously applies if non-parent relatives help in raising children.
These genetic principles apply to other animals too, but humans have extremely high levels of parental investment, so demanding attention is particularly important.
Mostly though it does. Again actual inconsolable crying is NOT common in human babies. The closest is the evening “developmental fussies” limited period typically of 4 to 7 weeks, that the article calls “colic”.
I agree with the person quoted that that may be a function of our brains and immaturity at birth. It correlates with babies spending more daytime alert and presumptively getting overstimulated.
Some bird calls can be heard hundreds of yards away! Example: I was sitting out on my porch, reading, and heard a bird, probably from the wooded area over on the next block, repeatedly crowing 6 times in a row, then a few seconds’ pause, crowing 6 times again, rinse and repeat. I asked the bird expert from whom I buy my birdseed what that might have been, and he said it was probably a very hungry juvenile red-tailed hawk.
Now that we’re 10 posts in, I want to share my favorite lullaby, in which the singer, Tim Minchin, is clearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown trying to get his baby to stop crying.
We used “attachment parenting” techniques and didn’t try anything punitive like putting the kid into their crib alone before they were ready for it, or letting them “cry it out” or the like. Result: quiet and happy baby from the start, almost never cried. I can hardly remember him crying out.
FWIW research does not support that.
There is a lot to be said for individual child caregivers being comfortable with how much self soothing to tolerate and many right approaches. I am not advocating ignoring babies’ cries. But so called “attachment parenting” is not a one size fits all method that reduces crying. Developmentally infants are “ready” to self soothe to sleep by four months and can be eased there without having to do “cry it out”. Parents who do not do ease their children into that habit with imposed sleep time rituals and routine should be prepared for a child who expects a parent with them to fall asleep and to fall back asleep when up in the night until likely five years old. Often that means a family bed. Nothing wrong or right about that choice but it should be a choice informed that such is probable.
It works! Just look at how quick parents attend to its needs.
As far as attracting predators, if a predator is closer than the parents, the baby is in a lot of trouble. Many predators are more attuned to smell and sound than we are, and babies have no defenses. Be loud, bring the adults to defend and serve. If they don’t come, baby is in trouble anyway.
Most mammal babies can be left alone, they have fur and siblings and some sort of nest area which is often underground and well insulated from weather. Human babies are crap at temperature regulation because they have no fur and for the first six months or so they can’t even creep around as ably as a kitten with its eyes still closed can manage. Before a human baby can roll over and figure out how to wiggle itself closer to mom it can’t access anything unless mom hands it over. A litter of kittens can make their way over to mama’s teats in just a couple days, whereas human babies will die if left alone and unattended and they can do it remarkably quickly. I think this is why they’re so insistent and don’t learn how to self soothe well until they’re well on their way to mobility. Our babies are super incompetent so our parents need to be super competent and babby screaming helps to make them more attentive parents lol.
I don’t know if I agree that human babies do this more.
Growing up on a farm, I can assure you that litters of kittens or puppies will get quite noisy when they are hungry or cold,. And that happens at least every hour or two, all day & night.
Since cats, dogs, and humans have survived and prospered, while 90% of species have gone extinct, this behavior does not seem to have evolutionary disadvantages – possible the contrary.
On the one hand, adult humans are so badass that we’re completely capable of protecting our infants from pretty much anything… provided that we know that there’s something to protect against. So that makes babies cry more, to get the attention of those badass adults.
On the other hand, due to the constraints of giving birth to our big brains, human babies are born very immature, by the standards of most animals, and so a human baby is much more helpless than the babies of most species. So they need attention much more often.
Kittens actually locate milkbar as soon after birth as the placenta detaches, and Mom cleans them off.
I think human behavior must play a big role, as in, humans, even early ones, are good at holding grudges, planning and seeking revenge, going over and above.
Like, a mother leopard who comes home and finds her nest of cubs has been killed by a lion may be angry/unhappy, but then she gets over it and comes into heat shortly and tries again.
If the humans in a village came home from the fields and finds that a lion has killed/carried off a child or two… It’s on. We will not just track that lion down and end up wearing its skin, we will kill ALL its infants and pride mates, and any other lions we come across in the process, and heck, those leopards look dangerous, too, might as well make the neighborhood as safe as possible.
I don’t think many predator type animals have ever prospered by preying on humans.
Do the cries of a human infant attract or discourage predation? Many predators avoid adult humans because the predators who didn’t didn’t produce as many offspring. Do they avoid younger humans or even the youngest?
The last two hypothesis, if I understand you correctly, state that babies’ cries could be seen either as bait or as a warning to predators. Or both. Fine.