Young children, as a rule, are allowed to eat too much meat. It is a mistaken notion of a mother that they require so much animal food. If more milk were given, and less meat, they would be healthier, and would not be so predisposed to disease, especially to skin disease.
I should strongly recommend you, then, to be extravagant in your milk score. Each child ought, in the twenty-four hours, to take at least a quart of good, fresh, new milk. It should, of course, be given in various ways,—as bread and milk, rice puddings, milk, and different kinds of farinaceous food, stir-about, etc. etc.
140. But suppose my child will not take milk, he having an aversion to it, what ought then to be done?
Boil the milk, and sweeten it to suit his palate. After he has been accustomed to it for awhile, he will then, probably, like milk. Gradually reduce the sugar until at length it be dispensed with. A child will often take milk this way, whereas he will not otherwise touch it.
If a child will not drink milk, he must eat meat; it is absolutely necessary that he should have either the one or the other; and, if he has cut nearly all his teeth, he ought to have both meat and milk—the former in moderation, the latter in abundance.
141. Supposing milk should not agree with my child, what must then be done?
Milk, either boiled or unboiled, almost always agrees with a child. If it does not, it must be looked upon as the exception, and not the rule. I would, in such a case, advise one-eighth of lime-water to be added to seven-eighths of new milk—that is to say, two tablespoonfuls of lime-water should be mixed with half a pint of new milk.
142. Can you tell me of a way to prevent milk, in hot weather, from turning sour?
Let the jug of milk be put into a crock containing ice—either in the dairy or in the cellar. The ice should be kept, wrapped either in flannel or in a blanket, in a cool place until it be wanted.
143. Is it necessary to give a child luncheon?