Better babies and their care

What the bath is to the baby’s skin, fresh air is to the baby’s lungs and entire organism; while sleep bears the same relation to the baby’s nerves that food does to its body. The lungs and, incidentally, the blood are purified by fresh air, and the baby should have it in plenty practically from the day of its birth.

Many of us can look back to the day when the new-born baby was wrapped up in a shawl like a wee mummy; not so much as the tip of its nose, let alone its rosebud mouth, was exposed to the air. When at last its timorous guardians uncovered the small face the baby was permitted to breathe, not pure air, but the atmosphere of a room with every window closed, and heated by an air-tight stove besides. If the baby was taken out for the so-called airing its face was covered with a blanket or a thick veil. The result was generation after generation of children afflicted with catarrh; now between the gospel of fresh air and operations for adenoids, catarrh is rapidly disappearing.

While this is a fresh air age, the mother should not go to extremes in supplying the air her baby needs, nor in “hardening” its body as some faddists maintain. The baby should not be chilled nor exposed to a direct draught. The air in the room should be cool and pure, not hot and fetid. In this one respect, strangely enough, the city baby has the best of the country baby. The average city house is uniformly heated by steam or furnace, and easily ventilated. The country or farm house is still heated largely by stoves. One room is very hot, others very cold. The warm rooms are places of refuge for the entire family and they are kept too hot; often every window is closed tightly and the air is sadly vitiated.

This statement is proved by the fact that at Better Babies Contests, held in connection with State Fairs, where championship prizes were offered, one for city babies and one for rural babies, the city children scored higher than the country children and showed a better chest development. The country baby should have the best air to breathe, but it rarely does have it, because its home is seldom well ventilated, and because its busy farm mother has so little time to take it out into the fresh air. The city mother is constantly reminded of dangers from impure air, by newspaper writers, by talks at clubs and social centers and at clinics. Even her older children come home from school preaching the gospel of fresh air for the family baby. She is shamed into ventilating her house properly and taking her baby out for a daily airing.

The country mother keeps her house closed in winter to shut out the cold, and in summer to ward off heat, dust, and flies. Her baby has small chance to breathe fresh air.

From the beginning, the baby, city or country, should sleep in a ventilated room, window open top and bottom, at a temperature of from 65° to 70° F. A thermometer is a better investment than cough-syrup. A baby raised in a uniform temperature will not need cough-syrup. The crib should not stand in a draught but be protected by a screen. If the room is very small, opening on a larger room, let the ventilation come from the larger room. Happy, also, that mother whose house can boast an open fireplace. This room should be chosen as baby’s nursery. Open-fireplace ventilation is ideal.

Whenever possible the baby should be tucked warmly into a carriage and allowed to sleep outdoors in the daytime. Only extreme cold and inclement weather should prevent this sensible plan. Nor should the baby’s face be covered while sleeping outdoors. A sunny corner of the porch is an ideal day sleeping-room, with the carriage screened from the sun. In summer, a mosquito net should protect the baby from flies, gnats, etc.

Never should a child be allowed to sleep in a room with gas or lamp burning low. The fumes from such illumination are extremely bad for the lungs. They exhaust the oxygen which the baby needs so sorely.

The busy farm mother who cannot take her baby for a daily airing has no excuse for not letting it sleep outdoors. If she has no carriage she can have casters put on the crib and roll it out on the porch, or even a deep box or basket can be padded and baby can be made safe and comfortable. When the baby begins to sit up and play, a similar padded box or small fenced enclosure should be built on the porch for a nursery. It is a positive injustice, nothing short of criminal, to keep a delicate baby in the kitchen.

Many a mother worn out by a fretful baby will secure rest for herself and good health for the baby by making it comfortable outdoors. The sleep in fresh air is restful, and babies that will not sleep well indoors acquire the habit if placed on the quiet porch or under a shady tree.

The sturdy baby should have its regular daily airing, weather permitting, from the age of two weeks. At six months the airing in his carriage—exclusive of sleep, understand—should last an hour; and the time should be gradually increased until, at five or six years, he plays the greater part of the time outdoors by habit.

If the day is inclement, rainy, blustery, at least open the nursery window and, dressing the baby, cap and all as for his daily ride, let him breathe the air for a half-hour or more. In winter the daily ride should be given during the sunniest time of the day. In summer, choose the cooler hours, early morning and just before bedtime.

The healthy baby is a sleepy baby. When a baby does not want to sleep, when it is restless and wakeful, one of two conditions exists: either it has been spoiled and actually trained to be wakeful by a thoughtless mother, or it is in need of medical care.

A baby comes into the world sleepy. If well and left to his own devices, he sleeps twenty-two hours out of every twenty-four during the first few weeks of his life. The mother who interrupts his slumber to cuddle him or show him off is endangering his health, and her future peace of mind.

Take a lesson from puppies and kittens. They sleep day and night. The wise mother-dogs and mother-cats do not disturb them. The wise house-mother tells her children not to touch or disturb the new-born pets, and yet she will permit family and friends to break in upon the slumber of the new-born baby of the household.

Directly a baby has been ushered into the world, washed, dressed, and fed, it goes to sleep. Unless roused for feeding, it is apt to sleep many hours. This is nature’s warning to mothers that new-born babies need just three things—warmth, food, sleep. And for the future good of the household, the greatest of these is sleep, and the habit of sleeping. When a new-born baby is permitted to sleep and trained to sleep, the family and the household routine are not disturbed.

The healthy baby starts life by sleeping two or three hours, and then waking to be fed. If the quality of the breast milk or bottle milk fed him is sustaining and satisfying the three-hour interval is correct. If the milk is not quite heavy enough he may wake at intervals of two hours and a half; but no baby should be fed oftener than once in two hours. If he does not sleep in stretches of two hours there is something wrong with his general health or the quality of the milk he takes.

For two or three months the baby varies this monotony of eating and sleeping only by an enforced daily bath and an occasional crying spell. Some babies drop right off to sleep after being fed; others cry a little. Moderate crying does not hurt a baby nor indicate a serious condition. It is about the only form of exercise he has, and, in moderation, is good for his lungs. But if his sleep is badly broken and his crying is shrill and prolonged, his digestion is probably at fault.

If the baby wakes up inside of two hours, and there is no evidence of ill-health or discomfort, the mother should let him wait, even if he cries, until the two-hour limit is up. This period she can gradually increase to two hours and a half, and then to three hours. The healthy baby is easily trained.

Of course, a dimpled, rosy baby is a great temptation to the mother, especially when she is lying restfully in bed, with a nurse in attendance. It is so delightful to snuggle the baby against her, and cuddle its tiny fists, to smooth its soft cheek and silky hair. But every time baby’s sleep is interrupted by these maternal pettings, mother is laying foundations for future trouble. When she is up and about, with no nurse to relieve her, and household duties to perform, she will wish that she had trained baby to sleep to the limit of his desires and inclinations.

At the third month the baby begins to take notice of what goes on around him and will lie awake a little longer between naps. If undisturbed, however, he will soon drop off to sleep of his own sweet will.

At six months he should sleep from six o’clock to six straight through the night, with just one feeding at 9 P.M. This 9 P.M. feeding should be given quietly and the baby immediately returned to his bed or crib. He should also be having two naps a day—from nine till eleven in the morning, and from one till three in the afternoon. If he sleeps too late in the afternoon he will be wakeful at six, the hour set for going to sleep at night.

After his first birthday baby has only one daily nap in the early afternoon; but the twelve-hour sleep at night is essential to his health until he has passed his sixth birthday. It is nonsense to say that a young child does not want to sleep. Nature cries out for sleep. Parents interfere with nature by starting the baby off wrong and teaching it not to want sleep. The best argument is that the baby who is kept up to romp with Papa in the evening, at the age of two, three, or four years, is a late sleeper in the morning, irritable and heavy.

The baby should not be rocked to sleep, nor should he be tucked into a carriage and then trundled to sleep. In clear weather he may be snuggled up in his carriage and set outdoors, in a corner screened from draught or direct rays of the sun, for both his morning and afternoon naps. At six o’clock he should be undressed, made perfectly comfortable, fed, and then laid down on a firm hair mattress without a pillow, to go to sleep without further attention. Do not form the habit of singing a baby to sleep or holding his tiny hand till he drops off. There will come evenings when you are too tired to sing, or there will be other work for your busy hands to do—and Baby, not understanding, will raise his voice in protest.

From birth the baby should sleep alone in a dark room well ventilated. Baby knows no fear and needs no light. Neither does he need the warmth of an adult body. There have been sad tragedies of babies smothered by tired mothers, too heavy with sleep to know they had rolled over on the tiny, helpless form. There have been other cases where babies permitted to sleep with adults, afflicted with chronic disease, have contracted the ailment and died.

Ventilation is most important. Occasionally we read of unusual cases where parents boast that they have raised eight, nine, or ten healthy children in unventilated bedrooms. These children have been constitutionally strong enough to survive such doses of vitiated air. The modern mother does not take the chance. She supplies fresh air to her baby from birth.

Above all things, do not start your baby’s sleeping habits with the warning “H’sh!” Have the room in which he sleeps as free from noise as your household habits will permit, and do not allow other members of the family to disturb him unnecessarily; but when he is asleep on the second floor do not demand that everybody tiptoe and speak in whispers on the ground floor. Remember that a healthy baby is not a nervous invalid whose “nerves” must be saved in every possible way. Rather take it for granted that he was sent into the world with sound nerves and a normal appetite for sleep as well as food.

If your baby does not sleep normally and peacefully, find out why, even if this means calling in the family physician. His restlessness, when he and the rest of the family should be sleeping, is probably due to one of the following causes:

First, improper feeding, which causes indigestion. If the baby is being nursed, mother’s milk may not be rich enough and the baby is actually hungry. If it is bottle-fed, the wakefulness may be due to overfeeding. One of the most common forms of improper feeding is frequent nursing in the night. When a baby starts life by being fed three, four, or five times during the night, it develops into a poor sleeper.

Second, improper clothing: night clothes that are too tight or that contain too much wool and irritate the skin; bedding that is too heavy, or bedding that is not sufficiently warm, in which case use a hot-water bottle encased in flannel, as described in the equipment for the nursery, Chapter II.

Third, foul air. Remember the baby is very sensitive, particularly to gases. The fumes from a lamp, turned low, or from gas, will pollute the air and make the baby wakeful.

Fourth, breathing-trouble; due to enlarged tonsils or adenoids, in which case the child is very restless, throwing itself from side to side and often lying face downward.

Fifth, nervousness; due to poor training, such as taking the baby from its bed whenever it cries, or keeping the nursery lighted, or romping with the baby just before bedtime.

Sixth, acute pain, which causes the child to wake with a sudden, sharp cry. In this case have a physician give the baby a thorough examination. This may be a symptom of scurvy, or even of more serious constitutional disease.

Never quiet the child that is restless at night with soothing-syrup or narcotics of any kind. Have the family physician uncover the cause, and remove it.