The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's NursesHolt, L. Emmett (Luther Emmett)
Science
The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses
Holt, L. Emmett (Luther Emmett)
Child care; Children -- Nutrition
At five months a child should not be fed or nursed between 10 P.M. and
6 A.M. At two years a child can easily go from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M.
without feeding.
_How should a baby be put to sleep?_
The room should be darkened and quiet, the child's hunger satisfied,
and the child made generally comfortable and laid in its crib while
awake.
_Is rocking necessary?_
By no means. It is a habit easily acquired, but hard to break, and a
very useless and sometimes injurious one. The same may be said of
sucking a rubber nipple, or "pacifier," and all other devices for
putting children to sleep.
_What are the principal causes of disturbed sleep?_
As quiet peaceful sleep is a sign of perfect health, disorders of
sleep may be produced by almost anything which is wrong with the
child.
1. Habitual disturbance of sleep in infants is most frequently
associated with the food or feeding. It may be from the discomfort of
chronic indigestion due to improper food. In bottle-fed infants it is
often the result of overfeeding; in those who are nursed it is often
due to hunger. A common cause is frequent night feeding; an infant who
is fed three or four times during the night is almost invariably a bad
sleeper.
2. Disturbed sleep or sleeplessness may be due to causes purely
nervous. Such are bad habits acquired by faulty training; as when the
nursery is lighted and the child taken from its crib whenever it wakes
or cries; or when some of the contrivances for inducing sleep have
been used. Any excitement or romping play just before bedtime, and
fears aroused by pictures or stories, are frequent causes. Children
who inherit from their parents a nervous constitution are especially
likely to suffer thus.
3. There may be physical discomfort from cold feet, insufficient or
too much clothing, or want of fresh air in the sleeping room.
4. Interference with breathing due to obstruction from large tonsils
or adenoids. These cause great restlessness and lead a child to assume
many different postures during sleep, often lying upon the face or
upon the hands and knees.
5. Chronic pains or frequently recurring night pains may be causes of
disordered sleep, when a child wakes with a sudden sharp cry. In
infants this is most often due to scurvy, sometimes to syphilis. In
older children it may be the earliest symptom of disease of the hip or
spine.
6. Sleeplessness and disturbed sleep are frequent whenever the general
condition falls much below a healthy standard; e.g., in infants who
are not thriving and in children suffering from marked anaemia.
_How are children who sleep too little, or whose sleep is constantly
disturbed, to be treated?_
Never by the use of soothing sirups or other medicines. Successful
treatment consists in the discovery and removal of the cause.
_Do children ever sleep too much?_
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