How long should the daily nap be continued? Until about four years old.
How shall I put baby to sleep? Darken the room and have quiet. The child's hunger should be satisfied and make him generally comfortable and lay him in the crib while still awake.
Can I rock him to sleep? No. It is a bad habit and, he will readily acquire it. It will be hard to break, and besides it is useless and some times an injurious one. The same may be said of sucking a rubber nipple or pacifier, and all other devices to put baby to sleep.
What principal things disturb baby's sleep? Quiet, peaceful sleep is a sign of perfect health, and disorders of sleep may be produced by almost anything that is wrong with the child. Food and feeding cause disturbed sleep. It may come from chronic indigestion due to improper food. In bottle-fed babies it is often due to over-feeding. In those who nurse it may be due to poor food and hunger. Feeding three or four times during the night makes a restless baby. It may also be due to nervous causes such as bad habits due to faulty training, as when the nursery is light and the baby is taken from its crib whenever it cries or wakes, or when contrivances for producing sleep have been used. Any excitement in a nursing mother or child before sleeping time will cause wakefulness. Romping play just before bedtime and fears aroused by stories and pictures are causes, and children who inherit a nervous constitution are special sufferers from this cause. Cold feet, insufficient or too much clothing, want of pure fresh air in the sleeping room. Tonsils or adenoids may interfere with breathing in older children. Rousing a sleeping child from a good sound sleep, is a frequent cause of poor sleep. If a pregnant woman keeps herself in as good condition as possible, not only physically, but also mentally, she will not be likely to have a nervous baby; and if a baby is not born nervous there is no reason, at all, why it should not sleep well, for sleep is then its most normal condition, nine-tenths of the time. It will then depend upon the food and training it is given. The training many babies receive is enough to make them poor sleepers.
[604 MOTHERS' REMEDIES ]
Unnecessary handling.—Babies are wakened from sleep to show to friends who wish to see them at almost any and all hours. They are handled, petted, and made restless. Sleep is their normal condition and they ought to be given the opportunity nature demands. They are only to be aroused from sleep for nurse, bathing and clothing, and immediately placed in their crib, covered comfortably and warmly with all light shut away from their eyes and quiet about them. They will soon wake of their own accord for meals.
Rocking baby.—Rocking and shaking cause an increased flow of blood to the brain, and this should be avoided, for it of itself will cause sleeplessness. The brain during sleep is comparatively empty of blood; warm feet and cool head tend to produce sleep. Rocking, etc., is unnatural, and baby is made to receive and enjoy the natural. If the baby is sick the mother may take it in her arms and sing to it and coddle it carefully, but it is then sick. If it is trained properly from the beginning, rocking to sleep will be unnecessary; walking with the baby is of the same nature. See that your baby has warm feet and legs and body and a cool head, with comfortable clothes and good careful feeding, and it will sleep. Singing lullabies are soothing, but they do no good at first as the baby is deaf. Such lullabies are good when baby is sick and nervous, and then the mother is allowed and expected to hold and quiet baby. Sleep perhaps as much or more than any other item of nursery regime, depends on habit and mild but decided purpose. A lack of firmness in the early months of the baby's life may not only render its early years a burden to itself, but an annoyance, if not a nuisance to the entire household. Baby's habits are quickly and easily formed, but hard to correct. Dr. Tooker says: "An infant is as plastic as moist clay, you can mold it to your will. But you must have a will and a purpose and a plan, and make your judgment and your duty law."
But suppose baby will not sleep, but continues cross and wakeful and peevish; can I not give medicines to produce sleep? Never. If baby is wakeful and refuses to sleep, there is something wrong with your training, his clothing, covering, or his food, or he may be sick, he may not get enough food, etc., or he may have worms. If everything is all right and you have trained your baby right from his birth, he will sleep. Find out the cause and remove it. All soothing syrups, cordials, and quieting medicines contain opium in some form, and all experienced physicians realize the danger of giving these mixtures to babies. Babies have been killed by medicines which were declared to contain neither opium nor anything else injurious. They are often used. Remember that opium, laudanum and paregoric are dangerous for babies and old people. Careful proper training, allowing plenty of sleeping time, no waking at wrong hours, warm feet, legs and body, cool head, proper modified food, and especially mother nursing, with mother careful with herself, will give a good baby in nine out of ten cases.
Will children ever sleep too much? Not if they are healthy; you must remember a newly-born baby sleeps nine-tenths of the time; excessive sleeping may indicate disease of the brain.