Teething is miserable no doubt, going through it now. My comment assumed we were talking children who were not yet teething. Possibly a bad assumption on my part.
I've had a colicky baby who cried not because he wanted to nurse (he would stop wanting to nurse after a certain point) and not because he was hungry. There are a certain percentage of babies with colic, we don't know why they cry but they cry and carrying them, nursing them, feeding them breastmilk through a bottle doesn't really help.
Then for our son, it grew less and by the time he was 3 months old, he was a very happy baby.
Hold him, breastfeed him and co-sleep with him and he'll be fine. Otherwise you're doing something wrong.
It's basic common sense, if babies evolved to scream for no reason for long hours in the wild, early humans would have been killed off by nocturnal predators ages ago.
> Hold him, breastfeed him and co-sleep with him and he'll be fine. Otherwise you're doing something wrong.
Some humility would serve you well.
Some babies, even toddlers, scream loudly for extended periods with no way to console them. Our neighbor a decade ago had one such child. They were great, loving parents. The kid was obviously happy and content. Yet, every night, for several hours, she was a siren. They saw lots of doctors. They started with co-sleeping, for what it's worth. In the end, a separate bed and a parent reading a book with ear plugs [for several hours] seemed to cause the child the least distress.
When the child was 2, and still screaming, a new neighbor moved in. They spread neighborhood gossip of child abuse. They called the police and child protective services. Luckily, their case was so well documented, it was not an issue. The issue was "resolved" with better soundproofing.
The kid is a teen now. Extremely kind, well adjusted, helpful, smart, and, a sound sleeper. She's obviously loved very much her entire life. I think the parents did a great job.
”It has been an age-old practice to drug crying infants. During the second century AD, the Greek physician Galen prescribed opium to calm fussy babies, and during the Middle Ages in Europe, mothers and wet nurses smeared their nipples with opium lotions before each feeding. Alcohol was also commonly given to infants.”
yeah it’s a modern phenomenon because overzealous regulatory agencies gatekeep parents’ access to opium lotions
Babies cry for very few reasons, and reason number one, two, and three, is hunger.