Leather leggings lined with flannel are very popular for children of three or four years and over. Rubber overshoes should always be worn if the ground is at all damp. Rubber boots permit the child to play in the snow or on very wet ground. In later childhood mackintoshes serve to protect from rain. Before this time it is better that the child stay in the house in rainy weather. We must never forget the possible danger of contracting cold after the use of waterproof clothing, from the fact that the body becomes damp from the retained perspiration. After the use of rubber boots the feet should be thoroughly dried and the stockings changed.

The following list represents the clothes required for late infancy and early childhood up to the period when trousers are adopted by the boy. More drawers are needed at first than later, on account of the occasional lapses in the recently acquired control over the bladder. CLOTHING FOR LATE INFANCY AND EARLiest ChildhoOD.

clothing required during sickness. When the child is in bed it should be dressed in night-clothes identical with. those usually worn. The garments should be changed night and morning, and be aired and warmed thoroughly before they are used again. There is seldom, if ever, any necessity of making a child go without changing its clothing for days or weeks for fear it will take cold. If the change is made properly, there is no risk. It is very important that the arms and chest be well covered with a sack of some sort when the child is awake. After it is well enough to be out of bed and to sit in a chair a flannel wrapper and knit or felt shoes are useful. Slippers are often dangerous, as they expose the feet to draughts.

CHAPTER VI.

FEEDING THE BABY.

In this chapter we shall consider what is often one of the most difficult of all the questions of babyhood; the rock upon which many and many a little bark has made shipwreck.

There are but two ways to feed an infant-namely, either on human milk at the breast of the mother or of a wet-nurse, or upon an artificially prepared milk dietand we have the two corresponding classes of the breastfed and the bottle-fed baby. Happy are the little ones who belong to the first class, for there is no question whatever that the natural and proper food for infants is human milk. Statistics show beyond doubt that breastfed babies as a class are larger and healthier than the bottle-fed ones, and that the mortality among them is far less. The most careful preparation cannot possibly make the milk of another animal chemically identical

with that of a woman or similar in its effects on the child. It is undoubtedly true that the demands made upon the time of the nursing mother are most exacting, and that nursing is probably much the greatest inconvenience of motherhood. Still, the mother-love should certainly

prompt the self-sacrifice.

Let us, then, first consider breast-feeding. Many varying directions are given regarding the time when the baby should be first put to the breast. We cannot do better in this respect than treat the child like any other little new-born animal which is not prevented by castiron rules from nursing as soon as it feels inclined. The natural instinct of a baby is to suck, and it should be allowed to do this as soon as the mother feels sufficiently rested to permit it, after both she and the child have been washed and dressed. This practice of early nursing is a good one, for the reason that it tends to ensure thorough contraction of the womb. It is true that there is very little in the breast during the first two or three days. There is usually something, however—a thin, yellowish, sticky fluid looking like poorly-developed milk, and called colostrum. This is of a peculiar character, since, besides being of a nourishing nature, it has a somewhat purgative action upon the child's bowels, and it is advisable that these be well opened early and the blackish contents (meconium) discharged. It is only by about the third day after confinement that the secretion of milk becomes well established.

The early sucking by the child fulfils still other purposes besides those mentioned. It both stimulates the secretion of milk and draws out the nipples into better shape for the baby's future use. If the nipple is somewhat depressed or poorly developed, it is much easier for the child to suck at it while the breast is still flaccid

than after it has become full and tense with the contained milk.

Many monthly nurses wish to feed the child during the first day or two of life with sweetened water, gruel, or other substances. This is usually totally unnecessary, and is often harmful. If the child really seems to be ravenously hungry, as shown by the avidity with which it grasps the nipple and the cries which it persistently utters, it may be given a very little cow's milk prepared according to the method to be considered later; but such a necessity rarely arises. During the first six weeks of life the child should be put to the breast regularly every two or two and a half hours during the day, and from this up to the time of weaning every three or four hours. It should be trained as far as possible to do without nursing at night—from ten in the evening to early in the morning. The tables given on pages 122, 123 for guidance in the frequency of the feeding of bottle-babies apply equally to those nursed at the breast. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of regularity in nursing. No fault is more common and more pernicious than that of suckling a child every time it cries, and simply for the sake of quieting it. The temptation to do this is great, it is true, but the final results are evil, for the baby's digestion is almost sure to suffer, and its disposition to cry to become worse and worse. Moreover, a baby is to a wonderful degree a creature of routine, and when once it becomes a "slave to bad habits" it will make everyone connected with it a slave to itself. It should never be allowed to go to sleep at the breast with the nipple in its mouth, but should be kept awake until it has finished or else be removed entirely. By the time of the next nursing it will be hungry enough to keep awake.

It is a great mistake to suppose that every cry that stops temporarily during nursing denotes hunger. Often the child is thirsty, and a little water is really what it needs. This necessity of giving the baby water is very commonly forgotten. A nursing infant should have water offered to it several times a day. So, too, the stopping of a cry by nursing may occur because the entrance of the warm milk into the stomach temporarily relieves pain-only, of course, to increase the indigestion and to give worse colic presently.

The mother also suffers from too frequent nursing, for not only is she then at the mercy of the child's habits, but she is extremely liable to develop cracked nipples as the result of the constant moistening.

The baby while nursing from the left breast should be held on its right side with its head supported by the left arm of the mother. The mother should be propped slightly in bed with a pillow or should lie upon her side. After her convalescence she should lean a little forward while nursing, so that the nipple points somewhat downward toward the child's mouth, and should slightly steady and elevate the breast with the first two fingers of the right hand to keep the weight from pressing upon its nose. If the child nurses too rapidly, the nipple should be withdrawn now and then to prevent its choking and to allow it to breathe. If the milk flows too freely of itself, it may be restrained by pressing the base of the nipple between the fingers and thumb; while if, on the other hand, it does not come quickly enough, and a delicate child seems unable to draw sufficient nourishment, the pressure of the hand upon the breast will aid in expelling it. In nursing from the right breast the position is of course reversed, and the child lies upon its left side. In some instances, however, it will vomit if in this position while