Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/81



77. Ought the infant's sleeping apartment to be kept warm?

The lying-in room is generally kept too warm, its heat being, in many instances, more that of an oven than of a room. Such a place is most unhealthy, and is fraught with danger both to the mother and the baby. We are not, of course, to run into an opposite extreme, but are to keep the chamber at a moderate and comfortable temperature. The door ought occasionally to be left ajar, in order the more effectually to change the air and thus to make it more pure and sweet.

A new-born babe, then, ought to be kept comfortably warm, but not very warm. It is folly in the extreme to attempt to harden a very young child either by allowing him, in the winter time, to be in a bedroom without a fire, or by dipping him in cold water, or by keeping him with scant clothing on his bed. The temperature of a bedroom, in the winter time, should be, as nearly as possible, at 60° Fahr. Although the room should be comfortably warm, it ought, from time to time, to be properly ventilated. An unventilated room soon becomes foul, and, therefore, unhealthy. How many in this world, both children and adults, are "poisoned with their own breaths!" An infant should not be allowed to look at the glare either of a fire or of a lighted candle, as the glare tends to weaken the sight, and sometimes brings on an inflammation of the eyes. In speaking to and in noticing a baby, you ought always to stand before and not behind him, or it might make him squint. 78. Ought a babe to lie alon from the first?

Certainly not. At first—say for the first few months—he requires the warmth of another person's body, especially in the winter; but care must be taken not to