Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/82

 overlay him, as many infants, from carelessness in this particular, have lost their lives. After the first few months, he had better lie alone, on a horse-hair mattress.

79. Do you approve of rocking an infant to sleep?

I do not. If the rules of health be observed, he will sleep both soundly and sweetly without rocking; if they be not, the rocking might cause him to fall into a feverish, disturbed slumber, but not into a refreshing, calm sleep. Besides, if you once take to that habit, he will not go to sleep without it.

80. Then don't you approve of a rocking-chair, and of rockers to the cradle?

Certainly not: a rocking-chair, or rockers to the cradle, may be useful to a lazy nurse or mother, and may induce a child to sleep, but that restlessly, when he does not need sleep, or when he is wet and uncomfortable, and requires "changing;" but will not cause him to have that sweet and gentle and exquisite slumber so characteristic of a baby who has no artificial appliances to make him sleep. No! rockers are perfectly unnecessary, and the sooner they are banished the nursery the better will it be for the infant community. I do not know a more wearisome and monotonous sound than the everlasting rockings to and fro in some nurseries; they are often accompanied by a dolorous lullaby from the nurse, which adds much to the misery and depressing influence of the performance.

81. While the infant is asleep, do you advise the head of the crib to be covered with a handkerchief, to shade his eyes from the light, and, if it be summer time, to keep off the flies?

If the head of the crib be covered, the baby cannot breathe freely; the air within the crib becomes contaminated, and thus the lungs cannot properly perform their functions. If his sleep is to be refreshing, he must breathe pure air. I do not even approve of a head to a crib. A child is frequently allowed to sleep on a bed with the cur