Beyond Baby Gear: What Infant Science Teaches Us About Support, Care & Connection

Soon after we find out we’re expecting, the algorithm is onto us. Bassinets, bouncy chairs, feeding apps and bottle warmers are all in our social media feeds, chat groups and inboxes, positioned as necessities. It’s both overwhelming and expensive but we want to do the best for our babies so we place our order or add it to the registry. Matrescence is a vulnerable time for any new mother and product marketers know it. Emily Little, PhD, is a consultant, speaker, and researcher who translates science into real-world solutions for infants and caregivers about what parents really need. Unsurprisingly, it’s not more stuff. Emily has studied childrearing around the world and shared her thoughts on what’s really best for both babies and their parents. —Jenn Wint 

What cultural or societal shifts have led parents to feel like they need constant tools, products, and data to raise a baby “correctly”?

Modern parents have no idea what they’re doing. But it’s not their fault. Humans used to live in intergenerational communities with plenty of opportunities for hands-on parenting practice. Though many humans still live this way, Western, industrialized culture has replaced the intergenerational village with independent nuclear families separated by geographic distance from immediate family and separated by cultural distance from our neighbors and community. In this new context, parents might hold a baby for the first time after they become parents themselves. They’ve likely never wrapped a baby, never observed someone breastfeeding, and never lived in the same house as a loud messy baby. They have no idea what to do with their new baby, but rather than having aunties and neighbors and “the village” to guide new parents through that anxiety, support comes in the form of targeted ads, late-night Amazon scrolling, and door-dashed solutions to what may not be a problem at all.

What are some of the most common infant behaviours that are often misunderstood or unnecessarily framed as problems?

The three biggest ones are waking at night, frequent feeding, and wanting to be held.

Night waking is probably the most misunderstood. Many parents are led to believe that healthy babies should sleep through the night and that waking to seek contact and milk is a bad habit that should be “trained” or “coached” out of them. From a developmental and evolutionary perspective, frequent waking and nursing is biologically normal and often protective.

Frequent feeding is another big one. Newborns have tiny tummies. They are designed to feed often. Pediatric guidelines recommend nursing *at least* 8 to 12 times per day. In some small-scale  societies, infants nurse multiple times per hour as the norm. Parents try to put babies into rigid feeding schedules that are out of alignment with their biology. 

Wanting close physical contact is also frequently pathologized. Babies evolved expecting nearly constant proximity to caregivers. Contact is not a bad habit; it is part of how infants regulate stress, temperature, feeding, and emotional security.

From an evolutionary and anthropological perspective, how does modern parenting differ from how humans have historically raised infants?

Human babies evolved in environments of continuous contact and shared caregiving.

For most of our species’ history, infants were carried for much of the day, fed frequently, slept near caregivers, and were cared for by multiple adults. Anthropologists sometimes describe humans as cooperative breeders because mothers were never expected to do this alone.

Total mismatch with the reality of parenting for most families in Western industrialized contexts today.

Many parents now care for infants in relative isolation. They are often expected to return to work quickly, navigate conflicting advice, and rely on products to solve challenges that were once buffered by community support.

We also ask babies to adapt to adult schedules rather than adapting our environments to infant biology. We expect consolidated sleep, structured feeding intervals, and early independence, even though these expectations are not aligned with how human infants evolved.

How does marketing and social media shape parental anxiety—especially during the early, more vulnerable stages of parenthood?

The baby industry has become a global market worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and much of its growth depends on reframing normal infant behavior as a problem that needs solving. Social media amplifies this dynamic because algorithms reward content that triggers strong emotions, especially fear. Parents are shown idealized nurseries, perfectly organized feeding systems, and “must-have” products alongside messages suggesting that a good parent is a parent that provides these “things” for their baby. In that environment, it becomes easy to confuse purchasing with preparedness.

One of the clearest examples of the effect of marketing on parenting comes from infant feeding and specifically predatory formula marketing. The World Health Organization reported that formula-related social media content reached 2.47 billion people in just six months and generated more than 12 million engagements. Formula companies have a long history of capitalizing on the fact that breastfeeding is challenging and many parents worry about making enough milk. This is an easy target for companies to swoop in with the “solution” of formula which can be easily quantified. 

With so many apps, monitors, and tracking tools available, how does constant data actually impact a parent’s confidence and mental health?

There is an important difference between tools that support and empower parents versus tools that undermine confidence.

Many apps, monitors, and tracking devices are built on a compelling promise: if you collect enough data, you can reduce uncertainty and become a better parent. That message is especially powerful during pregnancy and the postpartum period, when people are already navigating sleep deprivation, identity shifts, and a profound sense of responsibility.

But more data does not always create more peace. In fact, it can create the opposite. When notifications prompt more interruptions, parenting stress is higher. They also trust their instincts less. I see this dynamic frequently in my work. Parents start out hoping a tracker will reassure them, but over time some begin to outsource their instincts to dashboards and metrics. Instead of asking, “How does my baby seem?” they start asking, “What does the app say?”

As both a developmental scientist and a mother, I believe the goal of technology should be to empower parents to learn their own baby’s cues rather than creating dependency on the app or product.  

For parents trying to simplify, how can they tell the difference between genuinely supportive tools and products driven by fear-based marketing?

I encourage parents to ask one question:

Does this product support a relationship, or does it promise to replace one?

Supportive tools tend to reduce burden, save time, and fit into caregiving without suggesting that normal infant behavior is a problem. Fear-based products often imply that something is wrong unless you purchase a specific solution. 

Another useful question is whether the product addresses a real need or manufactures a new insecurity. Some products are genuinely helpful. The issue is not consumerism itself. The issue is when marketing exploits uncertainty and undermines parental trust. The best tools make caregiving easier. The worst tools make parents feel inadequate without them.

What does real, meaningful support for new parents look like beyond products and purchases?

The factors that most strongly shape maternal and infant wellbeing are not sold in stores. They are relational and structural. Human beings evolved to raise children in communities, not in isolated households where sleep-deprived adults are expected to meet every need on their own.

In practical terms, meaningful support can look like someone holding the baby while a mother showers. It looks like meals arriving at the door, a friend folding laundry, a neighbor taking an older child to the park, and a partner protecting time for rest and recovery. It can look like hearing, “Your baby is normal, and you are doing a good job.” At a broader level, support means societal norms where caregiving is valued rather than treated as invisible labor. 

When I talk about wellness, I often return to a simple idea: support is preventive care. If we want healthier babies, healthier mothers, and healthier societies, we need to invest less in convincing parents to buy more and more in making sure they are not carrying one of life’s most demanding transitions alone.

If parents could shift just one belief about what babies need to thrive, what would have the biggest positive impact?

It would be understanding that all babies need to thrive is contact and basic responsiveness. There’s so much pressure on parents to “enrich” the lives of infants. This leads to excessive consumerism, but also an obsession with learning experiences, entertainment, and rigid schedules. In reality, babies don’t need much. They need a warm body and a responsive adult to ensure they are warm, dry, and fed. Understanding this would take an enormous pressure off of parents. Yes, babies are still a lot of work, but with some simple tools (like a reliable wrap or carrier to keep baby on your body), there’s a lot of freedom that parents can find, even while managing the constant needs of a baby. 

After studying caregiving practices across four continents, I have been struck by how universal this pattern is. The details of parenting vary enormously across cultures, but the core ingredients are remarkably consistent: close contact, responsive relationships, and community support.

That observation became even more meaningful after becoming a mother myself. What my toddler has needed most has not been a perfectly optimized environment. He has needed to be held, fed, comforted, and included in my daily routine.

Modern parenting culture often implies that babies need more things to thrive. Developmental science suggests something much simpler and more reassuring: babies need people. They need loving caregivers whose presence regulates their bodies, supports their developing brains, and helps them feel safe in the world.

If more parents truly believed that their touch matters more than their purchases, it would reduce a tremendous amount of anxiety and bring us closer to what babies have needed all along.