The maternal management of children, in health and diseaseBull, Thomas
Science
The maternal management of children, in health and disease
Bull, Thomas
Child care
This disposition to repose in the early weeks of the infant's life
must not be interfered with; but this period having expired, great care
is necessary to induce regularity in its hours of sleep, otherwise too
much will be taken in the day-time, and restless and disturbed nights
will follow. The child should be brought into the habit of sleeping in
the middle of the day, before its dinner, and for about two hours,
more or less. If put to rest at a later period of the day, it will
invariably cause a bad night.
At first the infant should sleep with its parent. The low temperature
of its body, and its small power of generating heat, render this
necessary. If it should happen, however, that the child has disturbed
and restless nights, it must immediately be removed to the bed and care
of another female, to be brought to its mother at an early hour in the
morning, for the purpose of being nursed. This is necessary for the
preservation of the mother's health, which through sleepless nights
would of course be soon deranged, and the infant would also suffer from
the influence which such deranged health would have upon the milk.
When a month or six weeks has elapsed, the child, if healthy, may
sleep alone in a cradle or cot, care being taken that it has a
sufficiency of clothing, that the room in which it is placed is
sufficiently warm, viz. 60 degrees, and the position of the cot itself
is not such as to be exposed to currents of cold air. It is essentially
necessary to attend to these points, since the faculty of producing
heat, and consequently the power of maintaining the temperature, is
less during sleep than at any other time, and therefore exposure to
cold is especially injurious. It is but too frequently the case that
inflammation of some internal organ will occur under such
circumstances, without the true source of the disease ever being
suspected. Here, however, a frequent error must be guarded against,--
that of covering up the infant in its cot with too much clothing
throwing over its face the muslin handkerchief--and, last of all,
drawing the drapery of the bed closely together. The object is to keep
the infant sufficiently warm with pure air; it therefore ought to have
free access to its mouth, and the atmosphere of the whole room should
be kept sufficiently warm to allow the child to breathe it freely: in
winter, therefore, there must always be a fire in the nursery.
The child up to two years old, at least, should sleep upon a feather
bed, for the reasons referred to above. The pillow, however, after the
sixth month, should be made of horsehair; for at this time teething
commences, and it is highly important that the head should be kept cool.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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