Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife
John Stuart Mill · en
The baby should be fed with systematic regularity from the beginning.
While a child does not need food for the first day after birth,
nevertheless it is well to put it to the breast about six hours after
birth, since for the first few days after child-birth the breasts
secrete a laxative element which acts as a sort of physic upon the
child, clearing its bowels of a black, tarry substance, that fills them.
The full supply of normal milk comes after the third day. After the
first feeding the baby should be put to the breast every four hours for
the first day and after that every two hours, being kept there about
twenty minutes each time. The mother should be watchful and see that
the child is awake and is nursing. Even at this early age it can be
compelled to learn a good habit. Unless it learns this habit, the mother
will be put to great inconvenience and the baby will suffer because of
the disarrangement of the systematic feeding. If he is allowed to nurse
at his own pleasure, the results will quickly make themselves manifest
in the form of colic, leading to wakefulness and bad temper.
A baby should not remain awake more than four hours in the day on the
whole, and he should be so trained that the eight hours from ten o'clock
at night to six in the morning, when his mother is sleeping, should be
for him also an uninterrupted period of slumber.
The baby should be weaned at ten months unless he is unwell at the time
or the weaning comes in the heat of the summer, when there is danger of
his becoming sickly or peevish. Preparatory to weaning, the baby should
be accustomed to the bottle. Provided the bottle holds half a pint or
four glasses, the number of bottles may be increased from one a day at
four months to two or six at eight months. The baby should certainly be
weaned by the time it is a year old, as, even though the mother
continues to have a plentiful supply of milk, this is not suited to his
needs at this stage of his physical development. By this method of
approach the act of permanently refusing the breast to the child will
not greatly offend him. After a little crying he will philosophically
accept the situation and reconcile himself to the substitute.