Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper: Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and HappinessBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper: Containing Five Hundred Receipes for Economical and Healthful Cooking; also, Many Directions for Securing Health and Happiness
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Cooking; Home economics
After it is a month or two old, take an infant out to walk, or ride,
in a little wagon, every fair and warm day; but be very careful that
its feet, and every part of its body, are kept warm; and be sure that
its eyes are well protected from the light. Weak eyes, and sometimes
blindness, are caused by neglecting this precaution. Keep the head of
an infant cool, never allowing too warm bonnets, nor permitting it to
sink into soft pillows when asleep. Keeping an infant’s head too warm
very much increases nervous irritability, and this is the reason why
medical men forbid the use of caps for infants. But the head of an
infant should, especially while sleeping, be protected from draughts of
air, and from getting cold.
Be very careful of the skin of an infant, as nothing tends so
effectually to prevent disease. For this end, it should be washed all
over every morning, and then gentle friction should be applied with
the hand, to the back, stomach, bowels, and limbs. The head should be
thoroughly washed every day, and then brushed with a soft hair-brush,
or combed with a fine comb. If, by neglect, dirt accumulates under the
hair, apply with the finger the yelk of an egg, and then the fine comb
will remove it all without any trouble.
Dress the infant so that it will be always warm, but not so as to
cause perspiration. Be sure and keep its feet always warm; and for
this often warm them at a fire, and use long dresses. Keep the neck
and arms covered. For this purpose, wrappers, open in front, made high
in the neck, with long sleeves, to put on over the frock, are now very
fashionable.
It is better for both mother and child, that it should not sleep on
the mother’s arm at night, unless the weather be extremely cold. This
practice keeps the child too warm, and leads it to seek food too
frequently. A child should ordinarily take nourishment but once or
twice in the night. A crib beside the mother, with plenty of warm and
light covering, is best for the child; but the mother must be sure that
it is always kept warm.
Never cover a child’s head so that it will inhale the air of its own
lungs. In very warm weather, especially in cities, great pains should
be taken to find fresh and cool air by rides and sailing. Walks in
a public square in the cool of the morning, and frequent excursions
in ferry or steamboats, would often save a long bill for medical
attendance. In hot nights, the windows should be kept open, and the
infant laid on a mattress, or on folded blankets. A bit of straw
matting, laid over a feather-bed and covered with the under sheet,
makes a very cool bed for an infant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account