OUR BABIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 21

OUR BABIES

By

Hygeia.

Published under the auspices of 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.’’

The following little article, written by Miss Muriel Wrincli. appeared in a recent number of the “Women’s Pictorial.” This paper conducts a weekly section devoted to mothercraft, which is called “Better Babies,” and is conducted on “Truby King” lines by a nuse who was trained at the London Mothercraft Training Centre, under Miss Liddiard, from whose book we have recently quoted:

LESSONS YOU CAN TEACH YOUR CHILDREN “l am not bothering about training i baby at present,” I heard a mother remark the other day. Yet it should bo 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 regular 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-indulgence. Insufficient sleep engenders laziness and irritability. 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-hour 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-reliance in so helpless j a creature as the five-montlis-old baby, I yet the germ of this quality appears j even at this early age, and it will grow if we do not 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 the infant, and assume that he needs entertainment; but the normal baby does not want to be amused —he wants to live. Help your child to be self-reliant all through his childhood. When he is able to help himself in getting out of his cot, always let him do so, instead of lifting him out suddenly and bodily. When he begins to help in the process of dressing himself, 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 observe Nature, and encourage them to record their own observations. HOW TO HELP This atmosphere of quiet, selfreliant happiness cultivates many other worth-while qualities. Will power develops. Concentration develops. Love of work develops. If he is not too much interfered with, he will always be happily busy. Of course, your child -will sometimes ask your help. He realises that you are stronger than he, and that you know more. You must be ready to give help of the constructive kind. Your work, you see, is to be largely indirect. You are going to trust your child, and watch him. and help him on as he grows. The lessons of life are best learnt by the child from the attitude of grown-ups and the atmosphere of the home.

For colds in the head, headache, sore throat and hay fever, get equal parts of iodine, ammonia and carbolic acid made into a paste (by a chemist) with wood charcoal and compound tincture of benzoin. Put it in a smelling-salts bottle and inhale frequently during the day and night. Keep well corked when not in use.