Better babies and their care

by Anna Steese Richardson

This list contains every essential, and may be varied according to the taste and pleasure of the mother. However, it may be mentioned in this connection that a large layette of long clothing generally proves a waste of labor and money. The normal baby soon outgrows it, and as styles change in baby’s clothing, as well as in adult raiment, it is now the custom to shorten the baby’s clothes at six months, or even less.

Now as to the materials and their fashioning into the adorable little garments:

The belly-band, which is the first garment used in dressing the baby, must be neither hemmed nor bound. It is of soft, fine, white flannel, six to eight inches wide, and eighteen inches long. It encircles the little abdomen just once and may be adjusted firmly in one of two ways—either by sewing it on with large basting stitches, or by using five small, well made safety-pins. The latter are entirely safe if of good quality with the points perfectly protected. The present fad for sewing on the band rose from the fact that the cheap, poorly made safety-pins often came open and pricked the tender flesh.

The belly-band is generally worn until the baby is two months old, when he becomes so active that the strip of flannel slips up from the abdomen to the chest and interferes with his breathing. When he is active enough to displace the band, his abdomen is firm and strong enough for the band to be discarded as a binder and support, but some protection to the bowels must be substituted. A knitted band with shoulder straps is best, and these can be bought at any department store or shop which deals in clothing for children, in three weights. The best weight for average wear is a medium silk-and-wool mixture. The mother who knows how to knit can buy a sample band and copy it with little trouble. The baby continues to wear this knitted band until he is a year old, and longer if he has a tendency to bowel trouble while teething.

Silk-and-wool or cotton-and-wool shirts are preferable to all-wool for the tender skin of the new-born baby, even in cold climates. In warm weather the little shirt may be all cotton, but it should be high-necked and long-sleeved.

The small sized diapers should be used at first, with squares of worn, soft linen folded inside. Old handkerchiefs, napkins, or damask towels can be saved for this purpose. The larger sized diapers should be used as baby grows, but they should never be sufficiently heavy or bulky to force the legs apart uncomfortably. Not only will the child be uncomfortable and fretful if the diapers are not properly fitted and adjusted to his small person, but misshapen legs are often the result of unnecessarily heavy and bulky diapers. Diapers of rubber sheeting should never be used, as they cause irritation.

Various materials are sold for diapering. There is nothing better than soft cheese-cloth for baby’s first diapers. Later the average mother finds bird’s-eye more satisfactory than cotton-flannel. There are many patent diaperings on the market. Avoid all those made with an interlining or one surface of rubber. For first diapers, a good material is old soft Turkish toweling. In this connection it must be repeated that it is safer to wash all of baby’s clothing before it is worn. In this day of mercerized and “treated” fabrics there may be chemicals used in bleaching, etc., that will injure the tender flesh and start a case of eczema.

Next, the covering for the tiny feet. Tradition and maternal sentiment demand crocheted or knitted bootees and, strange to say, modern autocrats of baby-raising in the medical profession have not yet condemned them. The bootees may be made in silk-and-wool yarns, with wee drawing-strings of soft ribbon or yarn-cord, which must never be tied tightly enough to cause a ridge around the leg or ankle. When the baby begins to kick vigorously a soft, silk elastic can be substituted for the drawing-string; but it must not be tight enough to bind the tender flesh.

The last warning may seem almost unnecessary to the average mother, yet at one of the Better Babies Contests a mother told me that she had solved the problem of keeping on her baby’s socks in this unique fashion:

“Every time I looked at her feet she had kicked off her socks, and they were no good to her at all. So I took little chunks of brown laundry soap, moistened them, rubbing her legs and the inside of the socks with them, and I never had any more trouble. The socks stuck to the legs.”