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.