Why is there no manual?

I continue to find it amazing how little we, but also the world, seems to understand about babies.

Monday I read the following articles about infant sleep:
http://jamestown.ynn.com/content/health/child_wellness/563880/child-wellness--infants-and-sleeping-habits/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/denene-millner/cry-it-out_b_1163864.html

Now, the first article and accompanying video is just poorly made, poorly researched, poorly written. It would probably be fair to say that it is dangerously misleading, except that no one probably reads or watches YNN so it's hard to imagine there being harm done. But still, it's just a bad article. But the second article is interesting and anxiety-producing in its own way. Really? Every time a baby cries, its brain cells die?? Folks, I have two babies. Sometimes I'm with one and the other is angry I'm not with him. Sometimes they are both in their highchairs and I'm making up their food and they want it RIGHT NOW. Sometimes they are fighting over a toy and one pulls hard and falls backwards. Suffice to say, there is crying in this house. I think it's fair to predict that there will be crying in this house for the foreseeable future. Am I to worry about brain cell death every time Theo or Beckett doesn't get his way? Is all crying the same, e.g. is crying for 45 minutes before going to sleep the same as crying when they fall over backwards on the carpet?

Then this morning I woke up to this in my Facebook Multiple Moms Mingle group. It seems one of a set of twins born in June 2011 died of asphyxiation December 23 in his PeaPod travel crib. No recall has yet been issued. It is heartbreakingly sad for the family, and worrisome for us. We have been using our PeaPod Plus for several months now when we travel, and the boys have seemed to enjoy it. Well, at least not to suffocate in it. We had been planning to use it when we visited Kathy and Greg for Easter weekend, but now we may have to consider another plan.

Last night Beck woke up at about 10pm and cried on and off for about 5 minutes before falling back to sleep. The problem is, you just never know when he wakes up whether he's still half-asleep and was just laying on his own arm wrong and will go back to sleep, or whether he's just cranking up and is going to end up needed to be held and/or nursed. At least we can't tell. So we waited a few minutes and he went back to sleep. Theo did the same thing at about 1am, but for less than a minute. It seems the experiment of going to sleep at 7pm worked-Theo slept til about 7am (and then happily babbled in his crib for another 30 minutes), and Beckett would have slept longer but we woke him up at 8am so we could pile them in the car and take Daddy Lovebo to work (our other car is in the shop). They woke up once around 3:30am and ate and then went back to sleep after babbling to each other for a little while. I'm curious as to why they sleep less well, and also why they seem to wake up angry and sleep-deprived (and too early) with a later bedtime. The mornings after they went to bed later, they woke up crying and then were hard to console, whereas normally they wake up slowly, babbling to each other for as long as 45 minutes before they seem to need us to come in. Why, babies, why?