990 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



Constant late hours with attendant irregularity of sleep tend to a dis- 

 ordered nervous system. The child should sleep through the night and 

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

 ally 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 

 usually goes hand in hand with eating between meals and habitual irregu- 

 larity of the meal time and the bed hour. It should be looked upon as 

 something requiring immediate investigation and correction. 



Exercise. — The first exercise which the normal baby takes is a vocal 

 one. Its cry establishes the power of the lungs to do their work. There- 

 after a certain amount of lusty crying each day strengthens the vocal 

 chords, the muscles of throat, chest, abdomen and back, and gives the child 

 a good wholesome stirring up of general activities, through an increased 

 circulation of blood. For the first week the exercise attendant upon the 

 daily changes of clothing, occasional turning during sleep, and normal 

 crying is sufficient. After this, exercise may be given by wheeling the 

 child in its carriage a few moments at a time several times a day, or by 

 carrying in the arms, by gentle rubbing or massage, and by allowing the 

 child to kick and squirm, freed from all clothing, for five or ten minutes at 

 night when undressing and in the morning when dressing. As soon as a 

 child creeps it usually exercises sufficiently by itself. Children should 

 not be encouraged to walk at too early an age; as premature exercise of 

 any function is very harmful. 



Play, games, arid toys. — As the child grows older and its exercise takes 

 the form of play, thought should be given to a selection of games and toys. 

 Those should be suggested and chosen which will lead to an all-around 

 muscular development, as balls for arm and shoulder muscles, ladders 

 or bars for the back, and the like. The discovery that play is useful and 

 that games and toys have other than a pleasurable meaning is a new one. 

 Now we know that play is a vital form of exercise for the growing child, 

 so we encourage it and organize it and include it in our school curricula. 

 The playground and the play-hour are as important factors in the edu- 

 cation of the child as the schoolroom and the daily lesson. 



Fresh air is very necessary to the baby. If the weather is warm and 

 the baby is protected from sun and wind it may sleep out of doors during 

 the daytime after the first three or four days. If the weather is cold it 

 must be gradually accustomed to the change of air by opening the windows 

 for a short period several times a day. This does not mean that the room 

 should not be well ventilated at other times. By the end of the first 

 month the child should have a daily outing. If well wrapped and rightly 

 protected from cold, from too much light and from wind, the child may 

 spend most of the day out of doors, even in moderately cold weather, 



