OUR BABIES

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 85, 5 July 1928, Page 3

OUR BABIES

1 BY JIYGEIA. Published under the auspices c£ the Royal New Zealand" Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). j “it is wiser to put up a fence j at me toy of a precipice man to iiiauiuuu an amuaiauce at me bottom.” v The following little article, written by Miss Muriel Wrincn, appealed in a recent number of the Wo- | men’s Pictorial. This paper con- j ducts a weekly section devoted to j motaercralt, which is caned Bet- j ter Babise,” and is conducted on j “Truby King’ lines by a nurse who j was trained at the London Mother- j craft Training Centre under Miss j Liddiard, from whose book we have j recptly quoted: LESSONS YOU CAN TEACH YOUR CHILDREN. “I’m not bothering about training baby at present,” I heard a mother remark the other day. Yet it should be obvious that training must begin at birth. There are important lessons —lessons of life—which you must begin to teach your children from the very beginning. The most important lesson the child must learn during the first two years is to live in an orderly fashion. Life for the tiny child should never be a haphazard affair. To promote physical health, wise mothers keep their babies feeding times, sleeping times, and bath times *e gular as clockwork; but regularity is equally important from the point of view of mental health and character. Nibbling food between meals ' not only creates a tendency to dyspepsia, but also to general self-in-dulgence; insufficient sleep engenders laziness and irritability!

A NEW LESSON. By the time he is five months old the baby should have learnt to sleep soundly at certain hours, to eat regularly and to expect his play hmir at a certain time. Now he may begin to learn a new lesson or, rather, unconsciously to form a new habit —that of self-reliance. It seems absurd to speak of self-re-liance in so helpless a creature as the five-month-old baby, yet the germ of this quality appears even at this early stage, and it will grow if we do net interfere with it. At four or five months old,, ,for instance, the baby enjoys watching a dangling ring, or a bright rattle, suspended just within reach. It is a great temptation to swing the dangler backwards and forwards to make the baby smile, but if one pauses to consider one would realise that one would' be doing the baby no kindness in forestalling him in one of the few little actions he can perform for himself. We are apt to project our own feelings on to wie infant and assume that he needs entertainment, but the normal baty does not want to be amused,. he wants to live. (Help your child to be self-reliant all through his childhood. When ho is able to help himself in getting out of his cot, always let him do so, instead of lifting him oik sud- j denly and bodily. When he begins | to help in the progress of dressing ■ himslef, wait for him, even if his actions are slower than yours. And from the very first accustom your children to make their own games, playing with them only just enough to convince them of your interest and pleasure in them ,and to stimulate them to further- efforts and achievements. Teach them the elements of all kinds of handwork, then leave them to create objects for themselves. Lead them to ob- | serve Nature and encourage them 1 to record their ’ own observations. HOW TO HELP. This atmosphere of quite, selfreliant happiness cultivates many j other worth-while qualities. Will j power develops. Concentration develops. Love of work develops. If he is not too much interfered with, he will always bo happily busy. Of course, your child will some- i times ask your help; he realises that j you are stronger than he and that ; you know more. You must be isady , to give help of the constructive j kind. Your work, you see, is to be | largely indirect} You, are going j j to trust your child, and watch him, j ' and help him on as he grows. The | 1 lessons of life are learnt best by ; | the child from the attitude of grown- | j ups and the atmosphere of the home.