OUR BABIES

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 75, 9 November 1928, Page 2

OUR BABIES

BY HYGEIA. Published under the auspices tt the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). "It is -wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom," SLEEP AND REST. Everyone knows that bad feeding ruins many babies, bu few people realise the 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 the worn-out parts and attends to the growth of the whole organism, hence it is that when rapid growth is taking place Nature demands a maximum amount of sleep. iiOW iViXFOft lb NMKKUt iu ine nrst. month of hre a baby sliouid 6Wiep iime-teni/Ua ot his tune, whereas an uuuid neea» to sleep oiu.) a third or a iourtn ox his .t.inie, be- , awake from lji to i> hours out ot tu« M. lo make Urn imperative, need ot sleep in early yeaxs quite clear we win show tne proper allowance in tne form of a table: — Averages for Sleeping and, Waking.

At first all the .time not needed l for feeding, bathing, etc., is devoted to sleep. But, after the first month or soy a, baby' wants more and more caking hours for growing and kiclfc mgj and, indeed, for the growing senses, faculties and powers of body and mincL At six months of age a healthy baby can enjoy himself ror six or eigth hours, a day! By the time he is a year old (allowing a night of 12 hours' sound sleep) a baby should still have as much' as three hours a day sleep—say two hours in the morning and one in ihe afternoon, given at the same time each day.

j BABY’S BIGHT’S WITH REGARD TO SLEEP. How 'many modern babies are sure of their rights in these most important matters —the “night sleep’’ and the <T day sleep”? Many town babies accompany their mothers to the pictures from the time they are a year old, and there are very few infants indeed whose periods for day sleep are kept sacred and inviolate. Of course, one fully recognises that the modern mother is beset with difficulties, arising out of the fact of her not being able, in most cases, to get any helper or understudy to look after the home while she takes necessary outings, does her shopping, etc. However, the first thing is to recognise what the baby ought to have —and, indeed, mwst havt> —if the perfect development of manhood or womanhood is to be attained—proper ’growth of body, mind and character, all inseparably hound tip and dependent of one another. One notices, too, that even where there is no excuse of overwork or lack of help for the mother, 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 Sundays or holidays, or, may have the opportunity of getting off the chain themselves. Again, ione sees weary, fretful, or precociously lively babies, or small urchins, kept up every evening for an hour or so “because father likes having them about after be comes home.” INSUFFICIENCY OF SLEEP AND OVER-STIMULATION.

Our main purpose to-day is to draw attention, to the fact that stunting of growth and development, nervousness ,and all-round instability and precocity tend to result from robbing a child of its proper sleep, and from stimulating it when it ought to be an rest and growing. Any kind of over-stimulation {or over exertion is injurious to children. One frequently sees small children made nervous, high-strung, irritable, and capricious by being habitually dragged about of an evening long after bedtime to the point of weariness and fatigue this being done by parents devoted to their offspring, but without any idea as to what a) child needs in the way of regularity, early hours, and unbroken sleep and rest. One could better understand this kind of thing as a feature of town life, but one finds little children in the country kept up long after they ought to be asleep. Their parents recognise that they are nervous, spindly little shrimps; hut they put this down to Providence rather than to faulty rearing. Our school doctors are drawing attention to the number of weedy specimen® they come across; indeed no observant person can fail to be 'Truck 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 he realised sooner or later .that Herbert Spencer was quite right when he insisted that “Education m Parenthood” was the foremost of all duties to tiro race. When are parents going tp realise that, in an ideally 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 the spindles one so often sees. These matters will never be righted until parents leam tp ask themselves this question, when there are any shortcomings in their children: “Therein are we failing in our duty ?’ ’ As Herbert Spencer says: “When sons and daughters prow up sickly and feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a misfortune —as a visitation of Providence . . • they assume that these evils camp without causes. , , .. . Nothing of the kind. . , , very generally parents themselves are responsible. . . . In utter ignorance of the simplest laws of life and growth, they have been year after year undermining the constitutions of their chilclri^i.”

Time. Needed Hours Age. for Sleep ii-wake Hours Hours 1 month. 21 3 6 months 18 6 1 year 15 9 4 years 13 11 6 years 12 12 9 years 11 13 15 years a 15 25. years 8 15 5Q years 7 IK