OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3000, 10 February 1917, Page 5

OUR BABIES

TBt Htgeia.l Published under the auspices of tho Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Chlldreu. "It is wiser to put ti fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom/' SLEEP AND REST. Everyone knows that bat! feeding ruins many babies, but few people realise tho damage done by not ensuring a full and regular allowance of uninterrupted sleep and rest every day throughout infancy and early childhood. During sleep Nature repairs tho worn-out parts and attends to tho growth of tho whole organism; hence it is that, when rapid growth has to take place, Nature demands the maximum amount of sleep. Sleep, gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse. Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, . Chief nourisher in life's feast. Our foster nurso of Nature is repose. (Shakespeare: Lines from King Henry IV, Macbeth, and King Lear.) In the first six months a baby doubles its weight—at 20 years, -growth has almost ceased. In the first month of life a baby should 6leep nine-tenths of his time, whereas an adult needs to sleep only, a third or a fourth of his time, being awake from 16 to 18 hours out of the 24. To make the imperative need of sleep in early years quite clear, I will show the proper allowance in .the form of r: table. TABLE OF SLEEPING AND WAKING. Time Needed Hours For Sleep. Awake. Age. Hours. Hours. 1 month ;. 21 to 22 2 to 3 6 months 16 fo IS 6 to 8 1 year 15 9 1 years 13 11 7 years 12 12 9 years 11 13 14 years ....: 10 It 25 years 8 16 50 years . 7 17 At first all the time not needed for feeding, bathing, etc., is devoted to sleep. But, after the first month or so, a baby wants more and more waking hours, for crowing and kicking, and, indeed, for practising and enjoying tho use of all the growing senses, faculties, and powers of body and' mind. At six months of age a healthy baby can enjoy himself for six or eight hours a day! By the time ho is a year old (allowing a, night of 12 hours' sound sleep) a baby should still have as much as three hours of day sleep—say, two hours in the morning and one in the afternoon, given at the same time every day. How many modern babies are sure of their rights in these most important matters —the "niglit-sleep" and the "daysleeps"? Many town babies accompany their mothers to the "pictures," from tho time they are a year old; and there aTe very few infants indeed whose periods for day-sleep are kept'sacred and inviolate. Of course, I fully recognise that the modern mother is beset with difficulties, arising out of. the fact of hor not being able, in most cases, to get any helper or understudy to look after the home while she takes necessary outings, docs her shopping, etc. However, the first thing is to recognise what tho baby ought to have—and, indeed, must have—if the most perfect development of manhood or womanhood is to bo attained—proper growth of body, mind, and character, all inseparamy bound up and dependent on one another. I have referred to the great difficulties the mother has to contend' against nowadays owing to the lack of domestic help; but one. notices that, even where there is no excuse of this kind, babies are often no "better off, simply because people have no idea that it does a small child any serious harm to be traipsed about all over the country, on Kundays, or holidays, or, indeed, on any occasion where the parents may lave the opportunity of getting oif tho chain themselves. Again, one sees weary- fretful, or precociously lively babies, or small urchins, kept up every evening for an hour or so, "because iatlier likes having tlicui about after he comes home. Some years ngo a friend of mine told me how ,he had remonstrated with the father of a nervous, 'highly-strung little child, who was always kept up till lato in the evening, in spite of the mother's feeling that an hour or so earlier to bed would have made all the difference in the, child s health. It was not merely a question of losing sleep—the time could have been made up next morning though natural darkness is the best beiftime—a more serious objection was the improper stimulation and excitement before going to bed. My friend pleaded with the father, but without avail—the man's reply, being strangely, fatalistic, pathetic, 'illogical, and quite unjust to the child:—"lt makes no difference; lie won't grow up in any case; all my former children died in early youth." The father in this case, though affectionate, regarded Iris child merely from his own point of view, and he could not deny himself the joy of the little one's company on returning home of an evening. I have since come across similar cases myself—the first child in a family being specially liable to spoiling in tliis way. With each successive child common sense and justice tend more and more to take the place of parental caprice and self-, indulgence. This is undoubtedly one of the factors that cause the children in largefamilies to be, in general, healthier, happier, and more normal than where there is only one child. Insufficiency of Sleep and Overstimulation. My main purpose to-day is to draw attention to the stunting of growth and proper development of the body, and the production of nervousness and all-round instability-aud precocity that tend to re-" suit from robbing a child of its proper sleep and from stimulating il_wlien it ought to be at rest and growing'. Any kind of over-stimulation or overexertion is injurious to children. I nave seen a small child made nervous, mgnstrung, irritable, and capricious by beijig habitually dragged about of an evening long after bedtime to the point oj, weariness and fatigue—this being done by parents devoted' to theii: but without any idea as to what a needs in the way of regularity, early 'hours, and unbroken sleep and rest. One could better understand this kind of tiling as a feature of town life, but I find little children in the country kepi up long after they ought to be asleep. Their parents recognise that they are nervous, spindly little shrimps; . but they put this down to Providence rather than to faulty rearing. Our school doctors are drawing attention to the number of weedy specimens they come across; indeed, no observant person can fail to be struck by the fact that the majority of our children are below the standard that we 'have a right to expect. Education in Parenthood. It will be realised sooner or later that Herbert Spencer was quite right when he insisted that "Education in Parenthood" was tho foremost of our duties to the race. When are parents going to realise that, in an idenlly 'healthy country like New Zealand, almost every child should be a fine specimen of humanity—powerfully built, well-made, .broad-chested, and provided with sturdy legs, instead of tho spindles one so often sees. These matters will never be righted until parents learn fo ask themselves the question where there is anv shortcoming in tho child: "Whorein arc we failing in our duty?" As Herbert Spencer Buys:— When son,;, and daughters grow up sickly and feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a misfortune—as a visitation of Providence . . . they assume that these evils came, without causes. . . Nothing of the kind , . . very generally parents themselves arc responsible ... in utter ignorance of the simplest laws nf life and growth, they have been year after year undermining t'he constitutions of their children. —From "Preparation for Parenthood," in Herbert Spencer's Essay on "Education."