Scientists suggest babies cry at night to prevent....siblings

It's nothing but wild speculation IMO.

You could make up anything you wanted to explain why 'some' babies 'may' cry more than others during the night.

You could even find a theory that was the inverse, such as that babies who make the most noise especially in the dark put their people at the most risk from predators, so maybe evolution supports babies who cry less. (Less than what?) How the hell would we know a million years down the line? We don't. We just make stuff up and call it a white paper.

I would say it is more the waking to feed aspect than the crying particularly, of course the crying may or may not come with the waking.

I say that because breastfeeding is known to be a natural contraceptive thought to help space births out which increases survival chances for each child (no longer applying so much in modern western culture). As the OP states, the more often the baby feeds and especially while they still feed in the night, the longer it is likely to take for full fertility to return.

I would think the baby would be more likely to cry to alert mum to his/her need to feed in situations where baby is sleeping separately from mum (mainly in modern western culture) as opposed to where baby is always with mum and milk is on hand. There are if course many reasons babies may cry in the night (from experience!), I am only talking about the waking to feed aspect here.

a reply to: JValhalla

Hmm on trial again the "selfishness" of humanity lol...interesting how in this instance there is a theoretical acknowledgement of selfishness on one end (the child crying to prevent sharing mom and dad) and an outright dismissal of the selflessness on the other end when parents decide to accommodate the child instead of get their freak on...But then again maybe even quieting of the child is selfish...guess you would have to gauge whether the parents liked a quite house more than they do sex...

Interestingly though I find this to be a reach because there are so many other factors involved in keeping the parents from getting freaky again..usually just the physical trauma from giving birth is enough to keep the two away from each other sexually for a decent period of time...regardless of newborn crying or not.

I think is much far less of a reach to assume the crying comes from the fact the child went from a nice cozy temperature controlled heavenly womb with all it could ever ask for....to an extremely dynamic and fluctuating world of hot, cold, full, hungry, loud, quiet, bright, dark etc...

People still whine and cry about the fluctuations of the world around them...my wife likes it hot...I like it cold...she cries (complains) louder than I do so GUESS who wins?

It may still be wrapped up around selfishness but I don't necessarily think it has anything to do with the child trying to prevent siblings...

I've just finished watching the film "Inherit the Wind" with Spencer Tracy. I've seen it many times, but there's no doubting in my mind that the whole of America is the town of 'Hillsboro', more so today than back in 1925 and the 'Scopes' trial, because many technological advances have since been made, yet we still come across so-called 'scientific' theories of utter nonsense!

So, according to someone, a new born child cries in the night in order to prohibit mum and dad from having another child! Lol! Some posters here cannot discern the issue and thus give the theory credence in their mind..."Well, it makes sense..."

No! Not in the slightest does it make sense. I just looked at Google maps, and I was right, America is called Hillsboro.

a reply to: elysiumfire

I am really starting to wonder if Harvard is just producing studies that people want to hear.

Well as it does make sense theory, I still believe that feeding, dirty diapers, general uncomfortable is why babies do cry.

I was on timer for my daughter she never really cried. I always woke her up to change and feed.

a reply to: Sly1one

Hmm on trial again the "selfishness" of humanity lol...interesting how in this instance there is a theoretical acknowledgement of selfishness on one end (the child crying to prevent sharing mom and dad) and an outright dismissal of the selflessness on the other end when parents decide to accommodate the child instead of get their freak on...But then again maybe even quieting of the child is selfish...

Take comfort. It is not as terrible as all that.

Organisms are selfish, of course. They have to be in order to survive and propagate, because there is only so much available food and water, so many available sexual partners, and so on. Competition is built into nature. You see it in every area of biology, animal or human.

But many higher organisms are also altruistic, at least in special circumstances. They take care of their young.

And social species, those that live in groups, are altruistic towards more distant relatives, and sometimes even toward non-kin. There are situations in which cooperation is a better survival strategy (from the genetic point of view) than competition. Nature has responded to this by giving social animals the behaviouristic tools to exploit such situations.

People place a high moral value on unselfishness — in the abstract — because it has high material value when it is exercised by others in our favour. We all want others to be as altruistic as possible towards us, so we talk altruism up highly; if you think about it, then, we value unselfishness for selfish reasons.

We value selfishness more highly, of course. We don't normally admit it, because it would not be to our advantage to show our cards to the rest, but it is still the case. There are a few self-sacrificing individuals whose moral sense outweighs their better judgement. We celebrate their deeds, give them posthumous military decorations, canonize them, or write epics about them. Then we pocket the advantages they have handed us and move on. Their fame lives on for generations, but their genes have lost the great competition of life.

Unless, of course, they took care to have children before they wore themselves down or got themselves killed for our sakes.

a reply to: skunkape23

even adults use that tactic for a nipple suck, like when I am in bed with the girlfriend and I cry she knows.....

sorry too much info..

maybe they should study twins a bit more they seem to share ok.