Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene; Infants -- Health and hygiene
Besides, in very cold weather, or in a very young infant, the warmth
of the nurse's body, while he is being carried, helps to keep him
warm, he himself being naturally cold. In point of fact, the child,
while being borne in the nurse's arms, reposes on the nurse, warm and
supported, as though he were in a nest! While, on the other hand, if
he be in a perambulator, he is cold and unsupported, looking the very
picture of misery, seeking everywhere for test and comfort, and
finding none!
A nurse's arm, then, is the only proper carriage for a _young_ child
to take exercise on. She ought to change about, first carrying frim on
the one arm, and then on the other. Nursing him on one arm only might
give his body a twist on one side, and thus might cause deformity.
When he is old enough to walk, and is able properly to support the
weight of his own neck and back, then there will be no objection,
provided it be not in a crowded thoroughfare, to his riding
occasionally in a perambulator; but when he is older still, and can
sit either a donkey or a pony, such exercise will be far more
beneficial, and will afford him much greater pleasure.
175. _Supposing it to be wet under foot, but dry above, do you then
approve of sending a child out_?
If the wind be neither in the east nor the north-east, and if the air
be not damp, let him be well wrapped up and be sent out. If he be
labouring under an inflammation of the lungs, however slight, or if he
be just recovering from one, it would, of coarse, be highly improper.
In the management of a child, we must take care neither to coddle nor
to expose him unnecessarily, as both are dangerous.
Never send a child out to walk in a fog; he will, if you do, be almost
sure to catch cold. It would be much safer to send him out in rain
than in fog, though neither the one nor the other would be desirable.
176. _How many times a day in fine weather ought a child to be sent
out_?
Let him be sent out as often as it be possible. If a child lived more
in the open air than he is wont to do, he would neither be so
susceptible of disease, nor would he suffer so much from teething, nor
from catching cold.
177. _Supposing the day to be wet, what exercise would you then
recommend_?
The child ought to run either about a large room, or about the hall;
and if it does not rain violently, you should put on his hat and throw
up the window, taking care while the window is open that he does not
stand still. A wet day is the day for him to hold his high court of
revelry, and "to make him as happy as the day is long."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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