OUR BABIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 281, 30 November 1935, Page 10

OUR BABIES

By Hygeia. "Please Be Patient.” The following is another good article from the pen of Nurse M’Kay:— “ ‘lt seems as if all my training was just time wasted!’ a young mother wrote rather wearily the oilier day. ‘After being dry each night for a backwhole month, baby has gone right back into the old ways. Where have 1 gone wrong ’ “Now we must remember that control is gained over the bladder very very slowly, and unfortunately lost ve< v easily. Even adults lose it in time of illness. The nervous system of a child is unstable, and a dozen factors may tombine to make it more difficult to wait until mother can attend to him. “Normally at about the crawling age it shoul'k be possible to Jet the child wear his nappies only for his morning rest. It will be of great benefit to him to have nothing bulky between the legs at other times, and if he is regularly attended to before and after meals and whenever he seems to need it in addition all should be well. This does not mean that he has acquired ‘control.’ That is hardly possible in the first year of life at all. It just means that the opportunities that have been given him are sufficient for him, and the desire to empty the bladder is not likely to be urgent in between. As his intelligence grows so his response to his training will increase. He will learn to “ask” will appreciate the discomfort of the wet napkin, and realise, too, that mother is pleased if he is a “dry’' boy when she picks him up. By the time he is a vear old, when awake and in companv of a sympathetic adult who will quickly sec to his needs, he is to all intents and purposes safe. “Training at night, however, is quite another problem. When drowsy or asleep the intelligence and the will power are quiescent and baby returns to his normal state of being. It is perfectly normal for a child to be wet everv morning until be is two years old. or even longer. The mother can lessen her task by finding out the best times to pick him up. For instance, to do so at 9.30 might save ft nappy when it would be too late at 10; also by protecting him sufficiently so that the dampness does not supread all over the clothing. Otherwise she had best possess her soul in patience, and treat the matter very casually. “The functions of excretion mean a great deal to a little primitive with few interests, and if his mother stimulates that interest by too much praise for dryness, or (worse still) too much chiding for the opposite, the «child is likely to persist in his infantile ways at a stage when he would normally have outgrown them. It is a well-recog-nized fact that if the child is uphappy about anything his good habits will lapse immediatly. The coming of a new baby in the house, for instance, or a change of nanny, or too stern handling of some childish fault, lead nearly always to a return of bed-wetting, even after good habits have been established for weeks, or even months. “Undoubtedly nervousness in some form —which includes excitability from too much pre-bedtime romping, fear of powerlessness and its consequent unhappiness and sclf-assertivfeness —lies at the toot of most bed-wetting, especially after the cutting of the final milk tooth. Physical causes play their part, too, and should not be overlooked. Any local irritation may be responsible, and this includes constipation, thread worms, and a urine made over acid and over-concentrated by faults of diet. “To discover the cause is to go halfway to a cure. For instance, you will hardly help a child whose urine is strong by cutting down his water drinking! At the same time fluids should be very definitely rationed towards the end of the day, provided sufficient have been taken in the earlier part. Less starchy food and more vegetables and fruit, and perhaps a special course to increase vitamin B the nerve vitamin, may help matters considerably “How often to pick a child up is a moot point! It does so depend on the individual! Some mothers find that by setting an alarm clock, and waking to lift their child at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., increasing the interval by 10 minutes each night, will solve the problem. On the other hand, others find that even to wake at 10 is too upsetring, and leads to such prolonged wakefulness that more harm than good is done. One mother found that her child was always wet within the hour. One could hardly disturb as often as this. “Time is on the mother’s side, and if she does net complicate the matter

by making it an emotional one, bound up with moral issues; she does not shame her child, but rather gives himj confidence, and makes growmg-up seem attractive to him, and if she avoids over-stimulation, physically and mentally, sooner or later the little one wil outgrow weakness.”