The generality of mothers use no pins in the dressing of their children; they tack with a needle and thread every part that requires fastening. They do not even use pins to fasten the baby’s napkins. They make the diapers with loops and tapes, and thus altogether supersede the use of pins in the dressing of an infant. The plan is a good one, takes very little extra time, and deserves to be universally adopted. If pins be used for the napkins, they ought to be the Patent Safety Pins.
25. Is there any necessity for a nurse being particular in airing an infant’s clothes before they are put on? If she were less particular, would it not make him more hardy?
A nurse cannot be too particular on this head. A baby’s clothes ought to be well aired the day before they are put on, as they should not be put on warm from the fire. It is well, where it can be done, to let him have clean clothes daily. Where this cannot be afforded, the clothes, as soon as they are taken off at night, ought to be well aired so as to free them from the perspiration, and that they may be ready to put on the following morning. It is truly nonsensical to endeavor to harden a child, or any one else, by putting on damp clothes!
26. What is your opinion of caps for an infant?
The head ought to be kept cool; caps, therefore, are unnecessary. If caps be used at all, they should only be worn for the first month in summer, or for the first two or three months in winter. If a babe take to caps, it requires care in leaving them off, or he will catch cold. When you are about discontinuing them, put a thinner and a thinner one on, every time they are changed, until you leave them off altogether.
But remember, my opinion is, that a child is better without caps; they only heat his head, cause undue perspiration, and thus make him more liable to catch cold.
If a babe does not wear a cap in the day, it is not at all necessary that he should wear one at night. He will sleep more comfortably without one, and it will be better for his health. Moreover, night-caps injure both the thickness and the beauty of the hair.
27. Have you any remarks to make on the clothing of an infant, when, in the winter time, he is sent out for exercise?
Be sure that he is well wrapped up. He ought to have under his cloak a knitted worsted spencer, which should button behind; and if the weather be very cold, a shawl over all; and, provided it be dry above, and the wind be not in the east or in the northeast, he may then brave the weather. He will then come from his walk refreshed and strengthened, for cold air is an invigorating tonic. In a subsequent conversation I will indicate the proper age at which a child should be first sent out to take exercise in the open air.
28. At what age ought an infant “to be shortened?”