bered that children need a great deal of sleep. If rising at a certain hour in the morning is necessary, and the child seems tired, the hour for retiring must be made a little earlier. In no case must the amount of sleep desired be curtailed. A child of any age should not be allowed to lie in bed after thoroughly awake.

It is important to preserve great regularity in the hours of sleeping. Few things upset a child more than a failure to do this. There should be no romping games or excitement of any nature for at least an hour before going to bed at night, or the child will be apt to sleep badly. We must next determine what is best for the baby to sleep in. It should never sleep in the bed with its mother. Not only is there a possible danger of her overlaying it—a danger which is real and not imaginary, since statistics show that it occurs very frequently, and history records it even as long ago as the time of King Solomon-but there is a constant temptation to nurse it too often. The baby, on its part, acquires the bad habit of nursing only partially, sleeping a short time, rousing, and nursing again. Moreover, it is very liable to get the covers over its head and to obtain much less fresh air than it should.

The first bed generally used for the baby is the bassinet, and sleep should begin in this from the first day of life. The bassinet consists of a wicker basket with high sides and with or without a hood over one end. It should stand high, so as to avoid draughts on the floor. It should not be too large to be easily portable, in order that it may be readily moved from one room to another if desired. It may conveniently be lined with some colored or white material and covered outside with Swiss muslin; but these and any further decorations may be as varied and as elaborate as the mother pleases. It

is, however, better to have them simple and inexpensive, to permit of changing them when dusty or soiled. The illustration shows one of the ordinary forms of bassinet furnished in the shops (Fig. 37).

The bassinet is superior to the crib for the early months of life, because it gives the child more support at the sides and keeps it warmer if well tucked in. Curtains may be fitted to it, and are of service if there is any danger of draughts, but as they cut off the fresh air and catch the dust it is better to do without them; place the bassinet in a sheltered situation, and protect

it, if necessary, from draughts and light by a portable

screen.

The

A cradle may be used instead of the bassinet. form with projecting rockers is a constant invitation to everybody to trip over them, and the swinging form is also not to be recommended unless it is never swung. Although the rocking probably does no harm, it is against all the principles of training which we have been considering to make it a necessity in putting the child to sleep. If the child has never been rocked, it can never

miss it.

When the baby is eight or nine months old it should be transferred to a crib, in which it should sleep until five years of age. The crib should have sides which let down on hinges or on slides, and which should be high enough to prevent falling out, for it is astonishing over what high sides a small child can climb. The hinged side

takes up much more room in opening, and the sliding variety is consequently more convenient if it is so made that the child cannot by any means let it down upon its arms or legs. The old-fashioned trundle-bed is faulty, as it brings the child too near the draughts on the floor. The crib is, as a rule, better without curtains. It should be provided with a woven-wire mattress, and this should be as high from the floor as in an ordinary bed. The remaining contents and the manner of making up the bed are the same as for the bassinet, and the one description answers for both. There should be, namely, a soft, thin hair mattress, which is decidedly better for strong children than one of feathers is, as the latter is much too warm. Over this is laid a rubber cloth, and the whole is covered by a doubled sheet. Sometimes a quilted bedcover may be put over the rubber, to increase the softness and warmth. This is a very good plan in winter. It is

also sometimes well to place a small pad, like the lapprotector described in Chapter V., directly under the baby, over the sheet. There should be a small, soft, thin feather pillow covered with a fine linen pillow-slip. In summer a pillow of curled hair is cooler. The coverings of the baby in bed consist of a sheet, as many soft blankets as the season requires, and a light spread. In cold weather an eiderdown quilt is very useful. All the coverings should be light in weight, yet warm. The sheet should be of muslin rather than of linen, as there is a coldness about the latter which is very difficult to The pillow-cases, however, are better made

overcome.

of linen.

We must constantly bear in mind the very great importance of properly airing the bed after it has been slept in, and of warming it before it is used again. Every morning the windows of the room should be opened and the bed-covers be stripped off, and, with the mattress, exposed to the air and sun for at least two hours. Before the child is put to bed in the evening the covers should be well pulled down and allowed to stay so for half an hour or more. In cold weather the sheets should be taken off and warmed. Indeed, it is a good plan to warın them at all seasons except in the height of summer. If this is done, there is no necessity for a child to sleep between blankets, unless, possibly, in earliest infancy. It is difficult to keep blankets fresh and sweet if used in this way. If the sheets become soiled, they must be changed at once, no matter how often the soiling occurs. It is important to keep the rubber cloth well cleaned and aired.

The great disposition evinced by most children to wriggle themselves outside of the bed-clothes renders something to prevent this desirable. There are many

bed-clothes fasteners described, but as simple a form as any consists of two short pieces of elastic, each of which is attached to the covers by a clamp and is tied to the side of the bed or crib by pieces of ribbon. This plan is rather better than that of pinning the covers to the pillows with large safety pins, since the elastic allows of a certain degree of turning and moving about.

Where the child shall sleep at night is a matter depending largely upon circumstances. The best plan, theoretically, is that which places the baby, after the first few weeks, with its nurse in the night nursery. If the child is nourished at the breast, it can be brought to the mother's room at the proper hours and then be taken back. This relieves the mother of care during the night. If it is bottle-fed, the nurse gives it its nourishment. Many a mother, however, is naturally, and with good reason, unwilling to entrust so much responsibility to any employed person, while in other cases the means of the parents or the rooms of the house do not permit of such an arrangement, and the baby has to sleep in the mother's room. After the age of a year, however, it should certainly have a separate room at night if possible. The morning and afternoon naps are to be taken in the room used for sleeping in at night.

CHAPTER VIII.

EXERCISE AND TRAINING, PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND

MORAL.

THE training of the baby, physically, mentally, and morally, is so large a subject that we can consider only its most salient points.