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
I have seen, a child tossed nearly to the ceiling! Can anything be
more cruel or absurd! Violent tossing of a young babe ought never to
be allowed, it only frightens him, and has been known to bring on
convulsions. He should be gently moved up and down (not tossed), such
exercises causes a proper circulation of the blood, promotes
digestion, and soothes to sleep. He must always be kept quiet
immediately after taking the breast, if he be tossed _directly_
afterwards, it interferes with his digestion, and is likely to produce
sickness.
SLEEP
77. _Ought the infant's sleeping apartment to be kept warm_?
The lying-in room is generally kept too warm, its heat being, in many
instances, more that of an oven than of a room. Such a place is most
unhealthy, and is fraught with danger both to the mother and the
baby. We are not, of course, to run into an opposite extreme, but are
to keep the chamber at a moderate and comfortable temperature. The
door ought occasionally to be left ajar, in order the more effectually
to change the air and thus to make it more pure and sweet.
A new born babe, then, ought to be kept comfortably warm, but not very
warm. It is folly in the extreme to attempt to harden a very young
child either by allowing him, in the winter time, to be in a bedroom
without a fire, or by dipping him in _cold_ water, or by keeping him
with scant clothing on his bed. The temperature of a bedroom, in the
winter time, should be, as nearly as possible, at 60 deg. Fahr. Although
the room should be comfortably warm, it ought from time to time to be
properly ventilated. An unventilated room soon becomes foul, and,
therefore, unhealthy. How many in this world, both children and
adults, are "poisoned with their own breaths!"
An infant should not be allowed to look at the glare either of a fire
or of a lighted candle, as the glare tends to weaken the sight, and
sometimes brings on an inflammation of the eyes. In speaking to, and
in noticing a baby, you ought always to stand _before_, and not
_behind_ him, or it might make him squint.
78. _Ought a babe to lie alone from the first_?
Certainly not: at first--say, for the first few months--he requires
the warmth of another person's body, especially in the winter; but
care must be taken not to overlay him, as many infants, from
carelessness in this particular, have lost their lives. After the
first few months he had better lie alone, on a horse-hair mattress.
79. _Do you approve of rocking an infant to sleep_?
I do not. If the rules of health be observed, he will sleep both
soundly and sweetly without rocking; if they be not, the rocking might
cause him to fall into a feverish, disturbed slumber, but not into a
refreshing, calm sleep. Besides, if you once take to that habit, he
will not go to sleep without it.
80. _Then don't you approve of a rocking-chair, and of rockers to the
cradle_?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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