Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

It is very important that the nursery should be fitted with screens to keep out flies and mosquitoes. Mosquitoes carry malaria, and the foot of a fly brings germs from the street, garbage and trash piles far beyond the limits of the most sanitary nursery. The nursery should furnish the baby’s first protection from contagious diseases. It must be a veritable haven of safety. Therefore, no household work of any kind should be done in the room, such as washing or drying the baby’s clothes. The floors and the furniture should be wiped daily with damp cloths. A dry cloth or feather duster should never be used to scatter dust around the room.

Very important are the bath equipment, fully described in Chapter [VIII], “Cleanliness and Health,” and the baby’s toilet basket. The latter is most sanitary when made of wicker, plain or enameled, and fitted with celluloid or ivorine boxes. Swiss lining, with lace-trimmed pockets and bows, soon soils and catches dust and germs.

The equipment of the nursery should include a crib of enameled iron, a low table, a screen, a closet or chest for the baby’s clothing and supplies, a small clothes-rack, a pair of scales, and a low chair—a rocker without arms if the mother prefers it. If these are all painted white, they give the room a very sanitary appearance.

The crib should be supplied with springs, mattress—preferably of hair—a piece of India-rubber sheeting, and several cotton pads which can be washed, half a dozen cotton sheets, a pair of light woolen blankets—woven especially for cribs, or made from old blankets on hand, carefully washed and bound, or wide flannel by the yard finished with binding ribbon. The quilt should be of eider-down or a light-weight cotton-batting, covered with silk or silkaline. If the bed clothing is heavy, the baby will perspire and take cold more easily. A small hair pillow is better than feathers, and the pillow-slip should not be embroidered. It is far better to start the baby early in life sleeping without any pillow at all. A hot-water bottle or bag, covered with flannel, should always be at hand for warming the baby’s cold feet.

Many mothers cannot provide either a separate room or the modern equipment described; but a resourceful woman will supply admirable substitutes. If she can do no better, she will arrange one corner of her own bedroom for the baby. To make this sanitary she will follow the general plan of a bare floor, painted walls, and even sacrifice her ruffled curtains to the health of her baby. The baby’s corner can be separated from the rest of the room by screens. A screen may be made from an ordinary clothes-horse, enameled white, and covered with heavy dotted Swiss or silkaline, which can be taken off and washed.

If the white enameled crib is beyond the family purse, there are several substitutes which can be placed on an ordinary table with the legs cut off a few inches. One woman whom I met at a contest had found an old kitchen table in the attic. Her husband first cut off the legs evenly and then inserted casters, painting the whole white. On this she placed an ordinary marketing basket, with the handle sawed off. This, too, was painted with white enamel. In it she laid a hair pillow, cut down to the size of the basket, and then added the usual protecting piece of rubber cloth, sheets, and bedding. This basket was closely woven, and when the paint filled all the cracks, it made a snug little bed. If an open-work basket or an ordinary laundry basket is used, it may be draped on the outside with plain muslin, fastened with thumb tacks so that it can easily be removed and washed. Decorating the basket with frills of dotted Swiss over paper-muslin or silesia may give very attractive results, but it is not sanitary.

Another substitute for a crib is an ordinary packing box, which can be bought from any grocer or shoe dealer, scrubbed, dried and then painted white inside and out, and covered with muslin attached with thumb tacks.

If a feather pillow, instead of hair, must be used, it should be completely covered with rubber cloth or ordinary table oilcloth, because the feathers are heating and should be separated from the baby by the rubber.

If a good-sized basket or box is chosen, the baby can sleep in this until it is several months old.

On the day of baby’s birth, his clothes-rack and toilet basket, a low chair, and a table with basin should be placed near the fireplace, stove, or radiator. On the clothes-rack hang the first garments he will wear. On the chair hang an outing flannel or soft woolen apron for the nurse, and the soft shawl or blanket in which the little newcomer will be wrapped directly after birth. The toilet basket should contain the following supplies: