Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

I cannot help expressing my disapprobation of the practice of smothering up an infant’s face with a handkerchief, with a veil, or with any other covering, when he is taken out into the air. If his face be so muffled up, he may as well remain at home; as, under such circumstances, it is impossible for him to receive any benefit from the invigorating effects of the fresh air.

75. Can you devise any method to induce a baby himself to take exercise?

He must be encouraged to use muscular exertion; and, for this purpose, he ought to be frequently laid either upon a rug, or carpet, or the floor: he will then stretch his limbs and kick about with perfect glee. It is a pretty sight, to see a little fellow kicking and sprawling on the floor. He crows with delight, and thoroughly enjoys himself: it strengthens his back; it enables him to stretch his limbs, and to use his muscles; and is one of the best kinds of exercise a very young child can take. While going through his performances, his diaper, if he wear one, should be unfastened, in order that he might go through his exercises untrammeled. By adopting the above plan, the babe quietly enjoys himself—his brain is not over-excited by it; this is an important consideration, for both mothers and nurses are apt to rouse and excite very young children, to their manifest detriment. A babe requires rest, and not excitement. How wrong it is, then, for either a mother or a nurse to be exciting and rousing a new-born babe. It is most injurious and weakening to his brain. In the early period of his existence his time ought to be almost entirely spent in sleeping and in sucking!

76. Do you approve of tossing an infant much about?

I have seen a child tossed up nearly to the ceiling! Can anything be more cruel or absurd? Violent tossing of a young babe ought never to be allowed: it only frightens him, and has been known to bring on convulsions. He should be gently moved up and down (not tossed): such exercise causes a proper circulation of the blood, promotes digestion, and soothes to sleep. He must always be kept quiet immediately after taking the breast: if he be tossed directly afterward, it interferes with his digestion, and is likely to produce sickness.

SLEEP.

77. Ought the infant’s sleeping apartment to be kept warm?

The lying-in room is generally kept too warm, its heat being, in many instances, more that of an oven than of a room. Such a place is must unhealthy, and is fraught with danger both to the mother and the baby. We are not, of course, to run into an opposite extreme, but are to keep the chamber at a moderate and comfortable temperature. The door ought occasionally to be left ajar, in order the more effectually to change the air and thus to make it more pure and sweet.

A new-born babe, then, ought to be kept comfortably warm, but not very warm. It is folly in the extreme to attempt to harden a very young child either by allowing him, in the winter time, to be in a bedroom without a fire, or by dipping him in cold water, or by keeping him with scant clothing on his bed. The temperature of a bedroom, in the winter time, should be, as nearly as possible, at 60° Fahr. Although the room should be comfortably warm, it ought, from time to time, to be properly ventilated. An unventilated room soon becomes foul, and, therefore, unhealthy. How many in this world, both children and adults, are “poisoned with their own breaths!”

An infant should not be allowed to look at the glare either of a fire or of a lighted candle, as the glare tends to weaken the sight, and sometimes brings on an inflammation of the eyes. In speaking to and in noticing a baby, you ought always to stand before and not behind him, or it might make him squint.