TRAINING FROM BIRTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 4 (Supplement)

TRAINING FROM BIRTH.

The first week of life is not too soon for baby to start hia training. He can be instructed in the art of being automatically obedient a very long time before it is possible for him to know anything of voluntary obedience. Such obedience very soon turns into habit, and good habits established thus early in life have a wondderful influence that not only works for good in babyhood but stretches far away into adult life. Nature has very wisely ordained that the first months of life of a healthy and normal infant should be principally an alternate routine of eating and sleeping. The wise mother sees that this system is carried out religiously. Baby can be trained to wake at regular intervals during the day for his food, and to sleep throughout the night without feeding. To establish this regularity may require a little patience and perseverance, for the baby may at first interpret the system in the opposite way, and deem that ho has only to wake and cry to be fed, a very different proposition to regular feeding followed by sleep. Sleep after feeding is vitally important for every baby, and it should be laid down immediately after food. Do not stay by the child's side, and certainly never rock it. This good habit should continue for at least eight or nine months. Deep, undisturbed rest must be encouraged during the night. Modern opinion is very definite on the subject of no night feeding. Keep the room perfectly dark, and habit impresses a baby so quickly that the child soon learns that to awake in darkness is not to bo associated with food. If at first the lesson is hard for the little one to learn, and it cries, give it a teaspoon of cold boiled water.