The child is at first fed entirely with its mother’s milk; if she is weak or sickly, a wet nurse is engaged in a family which can afford one, but in poor homes the child is nourished with a very thin rice-gruel. Cow’s milk is now largely used in Tokyo, and in many families given together with human milk. Very often the former is drunk in the daytime, and at night the mother who sleeps with the baby, suckles it with her own milk. In Japan the mother, unless her place is taken by the wet nurse, invariably sleeps with the youngest child, and never leaves it by itself in a cot or bed. This has the advantage that any ailment that the child may happen to suffer in the course of the night is not left to be discovered in the morning when it may be too late, but is detected at once and attended to before it becomes serious. Thus, for instance, any rise in temperature is immediately felt when the child gets its milk, and measures are taken accordingly. [Illustration: THE “FIRST-EATING.” (FROM A PICTURE BY SUKENOBU)] On the hundred and ninth day after the birth, occurs the “first-eating,” at which a tray of food is set before the baby. Friends are invited to take part in the ceremony. A lady friend who has a large family of her own is asked to feed the child. She puts into its mouth a little paste of boiled rice and wets its lips with a drop of soup. Though the child generally spits out the paste, the fiction of its eating is maintained, and the ceremony closes with feasting among the invited guests. This “first-eating” is usually deferred for five or ten days as a postponement is supposed to bring luck to the child.