WEIGHT
The weighing time should immediately follow a bowel movement and just before a feeding time; then, and only then, we have the real weight of baby, as a retained bowel movement may often add from four to five ounces to the child's weight. There should be a careful record of each weighing, for there may develop a great difference if different members of the family endeavor to keep the weight in their minds. The normal baby should gain four to eight ounces a week up to six months, and from then on the weekly gain is from two to four ounces; in other words, by six months the baby should double his birth weight and at the end of a year his weight should be three times the birth weight. A stationary or diminishing weight demands careful attention; a good doctor should be called at once. Likewise, a very rapid increase in weight is not to be desired, as we do not want a fat baby, but we do desire a well-proportioned and alert baby, and, as someone has said, it is better to have little or no gain during the excessive heat than to upset the digestion by over-feeding, designed to keep the baby gaining.
In weighing, usually the outside garments are removed, leaving on a shirt, band, diaper, and stockings with the necessary pins; the little fellow thus protected is placed into the weighing basket and at each successive weighing, these same clothes or others just like them are always included in the weight, and it should be so reported to the physician.
THE STOOLS
In the chapter "[Baby's Early Care]," the first stools were described in detail, and there we learned that the dark, tarry, meconium stools are quickly changed within a week to the normal canary-yellow stool, having the odor of sour milk.
The bottle-fed babies' stools differ somewhat in appearance; they are thicker and a lighter color, but should always be homogeneous if the food is well digested. They do not have nearly the number of bowel movements each day that the breast-fed baby does. If a bottle-fed baby's bowels move once a day and he seems perfectly well otherwise, we are satisfied. And curds (white lumps), or mucus (sedimentary, slimy phlegm), indicate that the food is not well digested.
BOTTLE FEEDING AND CONSTIPATION
A bottle baby may be constipated because the proteins are too high, the fat too high, the food of an insufficient quantity or quality, or the milk have been boiled, while weak babies really may lack the muscular power to produce a bowel movement. With the help of your physician endeavor to arrive at the cause of the constipation, and, if the baby is two or three months old, from one to two teaspoons of unsweetened prune juice may be administered. Milk of magnesia may be added to the food (leaving out the lime water), or a gluten suppository may be used.
The change from milk sugar to malt sugar has helped many infants; while the giving of orange juice (after six months) is very beneficial in many cases. A small amount of sweet oil may be injected into the rectum which will lubricate the hard lumps and thus favor comfortable evacuation. The periodicity of the bowel movement (at definite times each day) is a matter of great importance. Immediately after a meal, if the child is old enough, he should be placed on the toilet chair. A bit of cotton, well anointed with vaseline and inserted into the rectum just before meals, will often aid in producing a bowel movement shortly after the meal has been taken.
Abdominal massage should be administered in all instances of constipation, beginning with light movements and gradually increasing, with well-oiled hands.