The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. | Page 4

first confinement), the
infant must be fed upon a little thin gruel, or upon one third water and
two thirds milk, sweetened with loaf sugar.
After this time it must obtain its nourishment from the breast alone, and
for a week or ten days the appetite of the infant must be the mother's
guide, as to the frequency in offering the breast. The stomach at birth is
feeble, and as yet unaccustomed to food; its wants, therefore, are easily
satisfied, but they are frequently renewed. An interval, however,
sufficient for digesting the little swallowed, is obtained before the
appetite again revives, and a fresh supply is demanded.
At the expiration of a week or so it is essentially necessary, and with
some children this may be done with safety from the first day of
suckling, to nurse the infant at regular intervals of three or four hours,
day and night. This allows sufficient time for each meal to be digested,
and tends to keep the bowels of the child in order. Such regularity,
moreover, will do much to obviate fretfulness, and that constant cry,
which seems as if it could be allayed only by constantly putting the
child to the breast. A young mother very frequently runs into a serious
error in this particular, considering every expression of uneasiness as an
indication of appetite, and whenever the infant cries offering it the
breast, although ten minutes may not have elapsed since its last meal.
This is an injurious and even dangerous practice, for, by overloading
the stomach, the food remains undigested, the child's bowels are always
out of order, it soon becomes restless and feverish, and is, perhaps,
eventually lost; when, by simply attending to the above rules of nursing,
the infant might have become healthy and vigorous.

For the same reason, the infant that sleeps with its parent must not be
allowed to have the nipple remaining in its mouth all night. If nursed as
suggested, it will be found to awaken, as the hour for its meal
approaches, with great regularity. In reference to night-nursing, I would
suggest suckling the babe as late as ten o'clock p. m., and not putting it
to the breast again until five o'clock the next morning. Many mothers
have adopted this hint, with great advantage to their own health, and
without the slightest detriment to that of the child. With the latter it
soon becomes a habit; to induce it, however, it must be taught early.
The foregoing plan, and without variation, must be pursued to the sixth
month.
AFTER THE SIXTH MONTH TO THE TIME OF WEANING.--If the
parent has a large supply of good and nourishing milk, and her child is
healthy and evidently flourishing upon it, no change in its diet ought to
be made. If otherwise, however, (and this will but too frequently be the
case, even before the sixth month[FN#1],) the child may be fed twice in
the course of the day, and that kind of food chosen which, after a little
trial, is found to agree best.

[FN#1] See Deficiency of Milk, p. 11.

Leman's tops and bottoms, steeped in hot water, with the addition of a
little fresh milk, and sweetened or not with loaf sugar, is one of the best
description.
If the stomach reject this, farinaceous food boiled in water, and mixed
with a small quantity of milk, may be employed. Or weak mutton or
veal broth, or beef tea, clear and free from fat, and mixed with an equal
quantity of farinaceous food.
If this artificial diet is used before the sixth month, it must be given
through the sucking-bottle; after this period with a spoon: in either case
it must be previously passed through a sieve.

When the large or grinding teeth have appeared, the same food is still
to be continued, but need not any longer be expressed through the
sieve.
Such is the plan of nursing to be followed by the mother until she wean
her infant altogether from the breast. The period when this ought to
take place, as also the manner of accomplishing it, are detailed in the
section on "Weaning."[FN#2]

[FN#2] See page 51.

The diet from weaning to the termination of infancy is pointed out
under "Artificial Feeding."[FN#3]

[FN#3] See page 34.

DEFICIENCY OF MILK.

If this deficiency exist from the earliest weeks after delivery, and it is
not quickly remedied by the means presently to be pointed out, a
wet-nurse must be obtained. It will be of no avail partially to nurse, and
partially to feed the infant at this period and under such circumstances,
for if it is not soon lost, it will only live for a few months, or a year at
most, and be an object