OUR BABIES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 31 July 1926, Page 17

OUR BABIES.

(By “Hygeia.”)

[Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society fo<r the Health of Women, and Children (Plainket Society).]

LET BABY SLEEP. .When' Mother May Be Selfish. 1 “Why don’t you let baby -sleep?” T was foolish enough to a-sk a. young friend l as Ave- sat by her parlour fire. It was nearly 10 o’clock, and baby, six months old, after a bout of crying, was deliciously curling -and uncurling her little toes and lifting her rosy, rounded limbs in front of a cosy fire. Baby’s mother looked at me reproachfully. “As if I wouldn’t he thankful if she would,”' she- said. “Whatever do you mean? I've tried all sorts of things, but she won’t sleep. She’s such a; bright, clever wee dear, alt nerves, you, know.. The least thing startles her out of her sleep, and she won’t go over again. “But suppose,” I Avent on, even more foolishly to suggest, “that baby were, in an institution ”

“But she isn’t. Oh! what a naughty, horrid auntie my darling little Rosie has,” and she 1 tickled bahA' till -she- shrieked Avith delight.

What- I wanted to say -was that in •a creche; or under the care of a. skilled muse Rosie would not have been treated as a “nervous” child. hut simply as a. hahy like -all other babies'. She would have had food and sleep- at regular hours. When -she cn’ed to 1 the gathered up and cuddled, she would have'been taken up and soothed 1 and oromptly laid down again, -until she learned that- sleeping was her job- at that hour, not listening to mother singing lullabies beside her cot. and not- entertaining company -before the narlour fire. Rosie’s mother -would reply, no doubt, that her hahy would- never exist if reared in -such cold, mechanical ways. Besides, if she slept all evening she’s 1 awake too early in the morning. So she is bathed and out to bed: at half-past five, leaving mummie free to make- tea, before daddy comes home. If .she* did wake up at seven and -spend- the rest of the ■ evening in the parlour, daddy was rested by that time, and -they both enjoyed the little pet and her pretty ways. The Difficult Way. Could one dare to tell Rosie’s mother that she was thinking of her own convenience apcl pleasure and n-ot of the child’s welfare-? If she had trained baby to lie still and not to demand constant attention or amusement, she could have made daddy’s tea, before bath time and tucked baby up at an hour when ts-he could have slept -a round of the clock without waking till a- reasonablei morning hour. If she had made it a fixed -rule that no visitors should, intrude' after . bedtime. the baby should never be lifted merely to be amused, and never under any circumstances taken from one room to another, she (the- -mother) would have ha-d some difficult- weeks •of training, but baby would have been rewarded by calm nights of sound, health-giving sleep. If baby has been properly * trained she will sleep through the; ordinary household noises. Even the- gramophone, the loud speaker, or the piano will not disturb her. Those very “nerves” which -seem to -a proud mother the sign of a highly-strung, sensitive temperament-, are probably the result of had training, broken sleep, and the- stimulating of the infant- at a-n -hour when she- 'should havebeen fast asleep. Let baby form the habit of sound sleep from her birth onwards. Otherwise -she .wall become the tyrant of the house—till another hahy comes to- learn, the- same- tricks — and she will lose- the precious; gift of sleep l during those years when it should he helping to form sound nerves and- a healthv constitution.