Baby hasn't downloaded the language and courtesy pack yet, but it will come!
Can a baby a few months old throw tantrums?
It's important to remember that your infant or baby a few months old does not have the brain capacity yet to throw blackmail or the famous tantrums.
The process of blackmail, tantrums, and manipulation requires already having acquired language. Moreover, it requires a cognitive activity that is much more evolved than that of the infant and the baby generally of carrying age (infant = no verbal language).
Now, be aware for later that these stages of negotiation, manipulation (whatever you call them) are part of the different stages of learning to communicate in the young child. Note that we are talking here about the young child and not the baby of carrying age.
Sometimes it can seem like a tantrum what is really a simple nonverbal reaction of baby, who at the moment has for communication only clumsy gestures, cries and grunts, certainly cute sometimes but frankly annoying in a queue.
This is not against you, nor is it premeditated to test your parental authority (as it might be for a 4 year old). If he cries, it's because he's communicating a need or a reaction to the context (hot, cold, hungry, finding an object...). These are sometimes frustrating stages for the child as well as the adult.
We can hear these phrases "Let him cry, he's testing you, he's throwing tantrums...". But if it is a young baby, you now know that this is not the case. It communicates to you a need with its reduced means. A need for attention, food, warmth ... it's up to you to discover which one to meet!
At what age does baby throw tantrums?
It is difficult to give a specific age as to when your child acquires the ability to throw tantrums, but the literature on the subject often agrees on 18 months - 2 years.
Your child must first be able to desire something and express it. At this age, he or she can begin to test his or her own limits and those of loved ones (so you). To know again that your child does not premeditate his crises in order to irritate you, but rather to discover and therefore know the framework and limits. In order to learn about boundaries, you need to cross them precisely to experience them. During this moment, you the parent are the one who embodies the limit and against whom your child will come into contact. And yes it is a sometimes irritating moment if we forget that it is actually a learning process.
To make the nuance between want/"whim" and need, you can therefore if possible try to understand what your child is feeling or looking for. It can be difficult to know if it is a request motivated by a desire or a need. In most cases, it is the adult (especially if they are unavailable or focused) who perceives a child's need to communicate as a whim. We perceive the tip of the iceberg as the whim without seeing the need underneath (need to eat, attention, play ...).
Bref as far as we are concerned here with babywearing and babies, we won't really have to deal with a whim.