Hints From a Mother’s Life.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1057, 2 June 1892, Page 5

Hints From a Mother’s Life.

(BY MRS WILLIAM EWART GLAD. STONE.) A FEW PRACTICAL NURSERY HINTS. Following Miss Nightingale’s example we must put in a word of caution against draughts. These can often be efficiently guarded against by the use of screens, and a little common sense should be exercised as to the position of the cots, the bath etc. Let me here quote Dr Squire : ‘ The importance of careful and efficient ventilation of the rooms occupied by children can hardly be over-estimated. The air of a closed room soon loses it freshness, even when unoccupied. Chemically the proportion of oxygen may not be appreciably altered, but the more active, or organised part of it is changed. Innumerable particles are brought into contact with it, which, if n.ot|* stealing and giving odours,’ may add what is imperceptibly injurious, and will certainly take away from it the quality of freshness. Movement of air through a room is a first essential of ventilation. Then the quantity and rate of movement has to be considered, taking care that the temperature and other qualities are so preserved as to be both pleasant and wholesome. ‘ The efficient ventilation of a child’s first nursery, under the special conditions of warmth required, demands a full allowance of cubic space to begin with. In calculating the necessary space for bedrooms, where equable warmth is required, any height exceeding ten feet is disadvantageous, and to be left out of account.’ A room fifteen feet square and nine feet high affords ample initial cubic space for a nurse and two children. With good and careful management, a nurse, infant, anl two other young children have occupied a bedroom of this size without detriment to health. No useless articles of furniture or of drapery were allowed entrance ; both a dressing-room and a bathroom were close at hand ; care was taken to keep the air of the room pure; no open vessels were allowed to remain ; the door never quite closed, admitted light and air from the passage ; the two windows were partly open on the summer nights; and the fire always lighted before bedtime in the winter. Children from seven to nine, or ten years of age may have separate bedrooms, and after that age a separate dormitory for each is requisite. A space fourteen or fifteen feet by eight or nine feet wide, permits a bed four feet wide to be placed between the door and the wall and a fireplace in the opposite wall to be beyond the foot of the bed. No doublebedded room should be less than fifteen feet square, and no bedroom should be without a fireplace. The room door may be left partly open, and there will mostly be an open door either from the dressingroomor the nurse’s room. The doors must be "so hung that when partly opened they will shield the bed, rather than direct the current of air onto it. The windows in the summer can be left a little open at the top ; they should be provided with shutters, both to keep off

draught and to shut out some of the light when this may be necessary; they aid materially in lessening the chill that in cold weather strikes in from the windows. A stout linen or jute fabric makes a good protective window-curtain for the winter. All woollen hangings are objectionable in a bedroom, as they readily absorb moisture, and all organic particles suspended in it or floating in the air. The ceiling of the room should be such as to bear rubbing over ; it is better of a grey or cream colour than white, so as not to reflect too much light on the upward gaze of the children. The walls of the bedroom are better distempered, or painted in some even tone of quiet colour. If the wall is papered, it should be varnished over, and the paper must have no bright-coloured, intricate pattern-spots, and no vivid greens likely to contain arsenic. The floor must not be carpeted all over, certainly not under the bed, and it is better to have boards stained, and left bare round the sides of the room. The top edge of the skirting board should be rounded off in all rooms for children. Iron bed-frames should have round edges. Slips of soft carpet by the sides of the bed, the and from the door to fireplace, if no tall over the centre of the room, are sufficient-. Kidderminster carpets are better than those of more open texture for bedrooms, and Dutch carpets, with a smooth woollen Burface over a hempen framework, are specially suitable for children’s rooms and the passages leading to them. The windows, except for bedrooms, should always be continued up nearly to the ceiling, and are better lofty than large. In the evening, when lights are burning, they may be opened a little near the top, with such arrangements of curtains as to protect those in the room from draughts. —Ladies’ Home Journal.