Common Sense in Mother Love in Bringing Up Baby.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 24, 17 June 1905, Page 60

Common Sense in Mother Love in Bringing Up Baby.

A VALUABLE AND TIMELY LESSON BY FLORENCE ST At. K POLE. LECTURER TO THE BRITISH NATIONAL HEALTH SOCIETY. Babies have a lot to contend with when mothers without any pievious study of the subject try their " prentice hand** on their tirst-born. And yet there is nothing so ddlicult in this work —the rearing of healthy, happy babies —that it need alarm you. Be you never so timid, or ignorant. < r nervous, you may succeed as well as lie be-t by -imply taking the trouble t • learn in time what are the principal things necessary for the little one's well being. No complicated knowledge is nee led. m»r a long apprenticeship, nor costly appliances. If you have common sense. add»*d to that greatest of all gifts, which Nature "eiid> so lavishly waen babies come—-mother love—very little the r tial knowlc.lge will enable you to avoid pit falls and rear a flourishing flock. t ommon sense vv i.l probably make you avoid a pitfall into which many young mothers fall, namely, that of thinking that the chief thing needing care, when the advent of a baby is lo ked for. is the preparation of its "layette.** C’.othing for the "little stranger’* i" undoubtedly nece-sary : but. after all. a baby may glow up into a tine, healthy "pecimen of humanity , even though the tir-t week" of it" infancy have been pa-sed wrapped up in nothing better than a woollen shawl. I am not advocating such a toilet—far from it. A proper outfit for the baby is a necessary matter for careful consideration: but the point to remember is that it i- not the most important matter for its ultimate welfare. The thing paramount above all other- is the air for the mother’s health. You can do this much better by thi: king at t iis particular time more of > ur • wn health, and It—- of its frocks an 1 frills. Isn’t a rosy-cheeked, brightey el baby infinitely more attractive than the laves an I embroideries of an elaborate layette? And that it may gi w rosy and bright-eyed de]>ends to a n-i ieiable extent on the justice you n w do to yourself. Think, for instance, how much better for your health to be out of doors in fine weather, instead of indoors, -training your eyes and stooping your -h aiders land, therefore, compressing your lung- and limiting their oxy gen containing capacity! while you run myria Is of little tuck- and gather count- !• -- yards of infinitesimal frills? I don't say that rhe work of "foundation laying” won’t entail on you the practice cf so >.e self-denial, for it undoubtedly will. It will drive you from the fireside on a c«dd. blowy morning because you will remember that there is no finer tonic for the nerves, and no better purifier for the blood, than fresh air. and that \ -an never get as much of it indoors as out. It will drive you to be 1 early instead of letting you accept invitations to par ties where you will be kept up late. If you are a "society woman** it will oblige you to forego the hundred and one distractions of life led in a whirl of fash’onable engagements. I am going now to suggest another particular in which your self-sacrifice may perhaps be called for. I shall introduce the subject gently by asking a question: "Which room are vou going to use for a nursery? or rather "Which rooms?” for there should, if it can pos-ibly be managed, always be two rooms set aside for the nurse and her I ttle charge. You may not at the tir-t blush see why I should preface the subject with a hint of self-sacrifice. What on earth has it to do with the choice of a nur You shall see—if you are mistress of a small hovs f —for 1 may be going to ma be of you the audacious demand that vou should relinquish some room which vou special'y prize—your cher’sh-

ed "spare room.” most likely—and offer it up to the use of King Baby! Why not- if it is for his good? Is he not going to be a welcome guest? The fact that his stay is to be a permanent one makes the necessity that the best room should be given up to h in all the greater. Babies want fresh air in unlimited quantities, and they need it even more urgently than grown people: for you must know that babies and young children are much more easily affected by unhealthy surroundings than grown people are. It will do the baby a great deal more harm to sleep in a stuffy room than it vv II do you or your husband. lam not saying it will do you and him no harm: quite the contrary . Bu> what 1 do want tn impress upon you is that it will do more harm to the baby than to you who have reached your full development. Therefore, if you have but small choice of rooms choose one w th plenty of sun and air. The essentials of a healthy nursery are that it should be a sunny room, an a ry room, and that it should have as much window space as possible. 1 cannot too earnestly impress upon you the value of sunshine for the furtherance of the growth and development of children. Sunlight kills the germs of disease: it gives colour to plants, and vitality to everything that live-. You cannot rear rosy-cheeked children n a gloomy nursery facing south. If you can in any way manage it. let the babies’ room face north northeast. You may have no choice as to size—if you have, let the nursery be large—but whether it is large or not you can always insure its being airy by taking care that the chimney reg ster is never dosed, that the windows open top and bottom, and that the room is not cumbered with large piece- of furniture. Many people do not recollect that they make small rooms much larger by cramming them with big pieces of furniture. Each article, though it does not consume air as a liv ng being does, takes up the space that ought to be o ciipied by air. and so makes the room airless more quickly than it would otherwise become. It is for this reason that 1 would urgently recommend you not to allow—as is unfortunately the habit in some hou-es—the nursery to be turned into a kind of lumber room. "< »h. we don’t want t here: send it up to the nursery.” is often sai 1 when the disposition of cumbrous articles is desired. Don’t allow this. Remember that, of all rooms in the house, the one that needs the most air space is the nursery.