| During the first eight weeks | Temperature 100 F. |
| From two to six months | Temperature 98 F. |
| From six to twenty-four months | Temperature 90—97 F. |
A bath at ninety-eight degrees is a neutral bath, and after the baby is six months and over, the bath may be given at this temperature, and at the close quickly cooled to ninety degrees.
NURSERY CLEANLINESS
The nursery should furnish the baby's first protection from contagious diseases. It must be a veritable haven of safety. Therefore, no house work of any kind should be done in the room, such as washing or drying the baby's clothes. The floors and the furniture should be wiped daily with damp cloths. A dry cloth or feather duster should never be used to scatter dust around the room.
All bedding and rugs should receive their daily shaking and airing out of doors, remembering that particles of dust are veritable airships for the transportation of germs. In every way possible avoid raising a dust. So much of the lint which commonly comes from blankets may be avoided with the daily shaking out of doors.
Soiled diapers should not accumulate in a corner or on the radiator; their removal should be immediate, and if they must await a more opportune time, soak them in a receptacle filled with cold water. Even those diapers slightly wetted should never be merely dried and used again, but should be properly washed and dried. No washing soda should be used in the cleansing of diapers—just an ordinary white soap, a good boil, and plenty of rinse water, with drying in the sun if possible. They require no ironing. Hands that come in contact with soiled or wet diapers must be thoroughly cleansed before caring for the baby or preparing his food.
As before mentioned, and it will bear repetition often, all windows and doors must be well screened, for flies and mosquitoes are dreaded foes in any community and in babyland in particular. All used bottles and nipples as well as used cups, pitchers, bits of used cotton, should be removed at once. The washcloth is a splendid harbinger of germs. There should be one for the face, and one for the body and bath, and both should receive tri-weekly boiling. Bath towels should not be used more than twice, better only once.
The technic of bathing, together with the location, furnishings, and cleanliness of the baby's sick room, will be taken up in later chapters.