Don't underestimate the importance of parental cuddling to a baby's proper development. Consider this:
It's not particularly shocking that baby rhesus monkeys, when deprived of direct contact with their real mothers, chose to transfer their affections to a warm soft surrogate monkey (made of towels) rather than a cold hard surrogate monkey (made of metal and wire mesh).
It's interesting, however, that the baby monkeys continued to cling to a milk-free cloth mommy even when the metal mommy had been fixed with a breast and steel nipple which delivered monkey milk. When the babies needed to eat, they would crawl over to the milk-bearing wire mother, but then they would immediately jump back to cuddle with the softer mommy.
Baby Monkey Still Avoids Metal Surrogate With Milk
