An excellent device for protecting the baby’s arms and chest, and keeping him generally well covered, is the poncho (Fig. [56]) devised by Dr. Lucy Porter Sutton of Bellevue Hospital. The poncho is a rectangle made of flannel, outing flannel or an old blanket and cut large enough to tuck well under the head and sides of the mattress and extend below the baby’s feet. The baby’s head slips through an opening, which is almost a right-angled slit, equally distant from the sides of the poncho and about 20 inches from the top. The slit is firmly bound and provided with tapes to tie it together after the baby is put in. The poncho should be put on loosely enough to permit the baby to move about at will beneath it. After it is adjusted the bed is made up as usual with additional blankets.
Fig. 56.—The “Sutton Poncho” which keeps even a restless baby well covered. The insert shows how to make the slit for his head to pass through. The regular bedding is turned back in this picture. (From a photograph taken at Bellevue Hospital.)
Under all conditions the baby’s airings must be increased gradually, both as regards lowering the temperature and lengthening the time, and always adjusted to the vigor and reaction of the individual baby. He must be warm, but not too warm; he must be protected from wind and dust, and his eyes shielded from glare and from flickering light, such as may be caused by a tree in a light breeze.
EXERCISING YOUR BABY
Although the baby should not be handled unnecessarily nor tossed about and played with by friends and relatives, it is important that his muscular development be promoted by regular and carefully planned exercise. It is usually considered best for the baby to lie quiet and undisturbed in his crib most of the time during the first three or four weeks. Dr. Griffith begins the baby’s exercise about that time by having the nurse or mother take him in her arms on a pillow and carry him about for a few moments several times daily. After a week or two of this form of exercise the baby is carried in the arms without a pillow but with his head and back carefully supported as the nurse is doing in Fig. [57]. The position of the baby’s body is changed by his being carried about in this way and the movement of the nurse or mother as she walks, causes a certain amount of motion of the baby’s muscles which constitutes a gentle exercise. The baby should be carried first on one arm and then on the other in order that both sides of his body may be equally exercised.
This semi-passive form of exercise by means of being carried about is regarded by many doctors as almost indispensable to the baby’s welfare. There is a possibility that lack of this form of “mothering” is one reason why babies in institutions sometimes fail to progress as they should. Certainly, it is inadvisable for the baby to be allowed to lie for very long in one position.
By the third or fourth month the baby sits up in his mother’s arms, as she carries him about, and he may be placed on the outside of his crib coverings for a little while every day, to kick and struggle at will. His skirts should be rolled up under his arms, or removed entirely, to leave his legs quite free, care being taken that the room is warm and that he has on stockings.
Fig. 57.—Method of carrying baby to support his head and back.