The Care and Feeding of Children. 805 



training is made easier for all future time, irregularity of meals is the 

 cause of many unnecessary deaths among children and where it does not 

 actually destroy life it oftens leads to permanently impaired digestive 

 functions. Irregular sleeping hours wreck many nervous systems. 

 \icious habits in later years may often be traced to a lack of systematic 

 training in infancy. Parents should have a realizing sense of the neces- 

 sity for beginning the child's training immediately and of the danger of 

 even one day's delay. 



Sleep. — There should be long hours of quiet sleep for the baby, inter- 

 rupted only by giving food at regular intervals, by the daily bath or by 

 a change of clothing. Its chief functions now are to eat and sleep and 

 not to furnish a center of interest for an admiring group of relatives. 

 The baby is not a plaything; it is an individual in the process of makng 

 and its chances should not be wrecked. If sleep is interfered with at this 

 age the nervous system does not develop normally. About twenty hours 

 out of twent>'-four should be spent asleep. During sleep the baby should 

 be turned occasionally to avoid cramped and uncomfortable positions 

 and strained muscles. If the mouth opens while the child sleeps it should 

 be gently closed. 



As the child grows older the waking periods will be longer. At two 

 years, thirteen or fourteen hours of sleep may be enough ; at three years, 

 eleven or twelve hours. There will be considerable variation in this 

 with different children, some requiring more, otliers less sleep. In any 

 case there should be a systematic regularity of bed hours. 



From birth to the end of the first year the child should be undressed 

 and settled for the night by six or seven o'clock. After the night feeding 

 at ten or eleven o'clock it should sleep undisturbed until five. During 

 the day it should sleep at first most of the time and gradually less until 

 only a morning and an afternoon nap are needed. Until the end of the 

 second year the child should have a morning nap and should be un- 

 dressed for it when possible. It may have a short afternoon nap also if 

 this seems needed and does not lead to disturbed sleep at night. Its bed 

 hour at this age should be about seven. 



All during the years of childhood the bed hour should be regularly 

 early. Up to the eiglith year not later than seven or eight o'clock and 

 not later than nine o'clock until after the fifteenth year. It is sometimes 

 necessary to infringe upon this rule, but the occasions should be excep- 

 tional. Constant late hours with attendant irregularity of sleep tend to 

 a disordered nervous system. The child should sleep through the night 

 and should rise at once on waking. If sleep is restless or disturbed it is 

 usually due to digestive disturbances and can be corrected by some modi- 

 fication in the diet or some change in the time of feeding. Restless sleep 



