The normal, healthy baby, properly clad, given legitimate freedom will choose its own form of exercise and gain strength through a God-given instinct. The parent who retards its activities or stimulates them makes a grave mistake.
For a few weeks after its birth the only exercise a baby has or needs is crying. Crying in moderation is good, healthful exercise. At two months, if the baby is still sturdy, he should begin to have what is termed play periods. All his clothing except the belly-band or shirt should be removed. Then, with the temperature of the room at 70° F., he is laid on a bed protected from draught, and permitted to kick and roll as his fancy dictates. When he is tired he will stop. Babies know better than grown-ups how to conserve their energies.
At four months, the healthy baby holds up his head and shows a desire to sit up with support. At six months he sits up with a pillow at his back. At nine months he is able to sit alone on the floor, with no pillow supporting his back; and, about this time, he will make occasional efforts to creep.
This is a critical time in baby’s career. He is so cunning, so enticing, that parents and relatives are very apt to urge him on faster than nature decrees. As soon as he begins to creep adult hands offer to help him stand erect. He is overpersuaded to take the funny, tottering steps before the bones and muscles are strong enough to support his growing body. This may result in bow-legs, knock-knees, flat feet, pigeon-toeing, all sorts of defects in gait that are sad crosses to bear in later years.
Encourage, but do not urge, your baby to activity, during these months of rapid development. Let Nature direct his progress. She knows the condition of his bones and muscles better than you do. When he discovers that his feet were made to walk on, he will drag himself to an upright position by a chair or stool. If he is walking at twelve months, he is developing rapidly enough and taking sufficient exercise. If very heavy, and he does not walk until fourteen months, do not worry. Nature is watching and guarding him. But if he is not walking at eighteen months, his condition should be examined by a physician, who may find backward mental symptoms.
One thing which often retards a baby’s walking is heavy, bunglesome diapers. At one year a baby’s habits should be such that diapers can be laid aside for drawers and rompers, which facilitate walking.
Another factor of daily life which interferes with baby’s development is the pressure of duties on the average mother. She has so many other things to do that she cannot superintend her baby’s exercise. So long as he is safe from danger, and is amused and quiet, she does not realize that he is suffering from lack of exercise. I have seen babies strapped in carriages and high-chairs for long stretches of time, without any change of position, without any opportunity to use their muscles, simply because they were amused and quiet, not disturbing “Mother.” An occasional change of toys, a cracker or a sweet, even a “pacifier,” are offered in lieu of what the child needs, exercise for its cramped muscles. This sort of child does not learn to creep or walk as it should, because it is given no opportunity.
Many women ask whether their babies should be “exercised.” If this means a system of rubbing, working of muscles, artificial exercise and stimulation for the normal baby, I should say most emphatically “No!” Calisthenics of any sort should not be forced on a young child; many a well-meaning father with physical culture fads has developed a normal, healthy child into a nervous, pallid baby, by attempting to give it exercise designed for sluggish adult systems. Even a good thing like physical culture can be misapplied.
If a baby is listless, puny, and backward, consult a physician; do not apply your own particular methods of stimulation. What your child may need is better nourishment, not exercise that will weaken it further.
A very common question asked by young mothers is this: