A young babe should not be fed more frequently than once in two hours, and by the time it is three months old once in three hours is preferable. Most children, when four or five months old, can be taught to sleep all night without nursing. Nothing deranges a child’s digestion more than irregular and constant nursing. I have seen a mother give her child the breast five times during a half-hour’s conversation. It is unreasonable to suppose that a child is hungry every time it nestles and frets. Consider the time since it has nursed, and look for other causes of uneasiness before giving it the breast.
A babe should be weaned when it is from twelve to eighteen months old. The exact time depends largely upon its development, and also upon the mother’s condition. Begin weaning by omitting nursing once a day for several days, then twice a day, and so on. In this way the little one is weaned almost, or quite unconsciously, is never for a minute unhappy, and the mother is saved great anxiety and worry. Before weaning and some time after, it should be fed upon oatmeal, barley meal, wheat meal, graham bread and milk, wheatlet, etc. The digestive organs are not in a condition for a mixed diet until the teeth are developed, and, as has been indicated above, the saliva is not yet an efficient aid for digesting starchy food. Many a case of summer complaint, convulsions, etc., is due to the meat, pie and cake upon which the child has been fed.
Meat-fed children are cross, irritable and quarrelsome. Some three years since a kind, conscientious mother said: “The greatest trial of my life is that my children quarrel so with each other. I cannot understand the reason. Nothing they do annoys me so much, and by teaching, persuasion or punishment I have been unable to change their habit.”
Hoping to give her aid, I asked many questions—among other things in regard to diet. She told me they were great meat eaters; her husband and brother must have it three times a day, and the children often ate scarcely anything else. I told her the story of the bear that was kept at the museum in Giessen; when fed on bread only it was quiet and tractable—even children could play with it with impunity—but a few days’ feeding upon meat would make it ferocious, quarrelsome and dangerous.
She agreed to try the experiment upon her children. I counseled her, as her husband did not dine at home, to make a special dinner for the children. Instead of giving them scraps of cold meat, pies and cake, etc., make them milk toast, tiny graham or corn meal gems, cracked wheat or wheatlet moulded in small cups with fruit sauce, fruit puddings, etc. Spare no pains in making it attractive and palatable. Decorate the table with fruit and flowers, and make the occasions frequent when their own holiday presents of china should be used. Follow this with a light lunch at night, of simple, farinaceous food before the ordinary family dinner. In this way they would be tempted with the meat only at breakfast, and even then, fresh fish, fish balls, omelets, etc., might often be made to supplant the platter of steak or ham.
This lady entered into the plan heartily, and was more than amply paid. In less than a month she could see a difference in the habits of her children, and a year later she testified that it would hardly be recognized as the same family. The children were cheerful, playful, gleeful, and full of spirit—but in place of fretfulness and quarrels, were kind, benevolent and considerate to each other. They were also more than ordinarily exempt from acute attacks of fevers and inflammation.
CHAPTER XVII.
DISEASES OF INFANTS.
The diseases herein treated are mainly those for which a physician is seldom called. A few suggestions are also added upon those in which the severity of the attack necessitates attention before medical aid can be obtained.
Aphtha is sometimes the result of scrofula, otherwise it is caused by improper quality or quantity of food, either natural or artificial. In bottle-fed babes it often results from the milk not being sufficiently diluted, or from the use of starchy food. Neglect of general cleanliness in many cases give rise to this ailment. The child is feverish, fretful, and often refuses the breast on account of pain experienced in nursing. Sometimes there is vomiting and thin watery diarrhea. The tongue, gums, palate and inside of cheeks and lips are thickly specked with white flecks; sometimes there is a dirty diphtheritic-like membrane. Aphtha usually runs its course in a few days. Those cases are exceptional which are followed by unpleasant results.
Treatment.—Sometimes the case requires merely the washing of the mouth two or three times a day with a weak solution of borax, ten grains to one ounce of water. The mouth should be cleansed after each meal, as should also the mother’s nipple.