Now you are all ready for bed; and the white pillow and the nice,
clean sheets and the warm blankets look very good to you, and you are
ready to go to the "Land of Nod."
You need not be afraid of the cold at night. Open your bedroom
windows. Have plenty of light-weight, warm covers; then the cold
breezes won't hurt you, but will make you strong. Just think how many
hours you are in bed,--nearly half of your life,--and you need fresh,
moving air all the time. Be sure to open your windows from the top as
well as from the bottom. You know why: your breath is warm so that it
floats and rises like smoke; and if you open the window only at the
bottom, this bad air, which rises to the top of the room, can't get
out. It is best to have windows on two sides of a bedroom, so that the
air can be kept moving through it all night long. If you don't breathe
fresh air while you sleep, you will feel dull and stupid in the
morning and perhaps have a headache.
So run your window shades right up to the top and throw your curtains,
or shutters, back, as well as open the windows. If you don't, the
fresh air cannot blow through the room properly. Even if this does let
more light or noise into the room, this is of no importance whatever
compared with abundance of fresh air. If you have played long enough
out of doors in the daytime and have eaten a good supper and not
stayed up too late, you will sleep soundly without being bothered at
all by either lights or noises coming in through the windows. And no
matter how cold or how light it is, don't put your head under the
bedclothes. Why?
It is best for you to close your mouth while you are going to sleep,
and breathe through your nose, so that the air will be properly
purified and warmed before it reaches your lungs. If you can't do
this, your mother can perhaps give you something to wash out your
nose, so that you can breathe freely. If that does not help, you had
better see a doctor, and he will find some way to clear your head so
that you can use your nose comfortably.
Suppose you take a pencil and paper and write down all you did
yesterday. Wasn't it enough to make you tired and sleepy and want a
chance to rest? Even while you sleep, your heart keeps beating, and
you don't stop breathing, of course. But your muscles are quiet, and
your food tube rests. Your brain rests, too,--better in sleep than at
any other time,--so that when morning comes you are as "lively as a
cricket" and quite ready for the new day.
Yet even in sleep your brain does not stop working entirely, but goes
on receiving messages from the stomach and the skin and the memory,
and mixing them up together in the strangest fashion, so that you
_dream_, as you say. You ought not to dream very much if you are
perfectly well; but as long as your dreams are pleasant or amusing,
you need not pay any attention to them. But if you have had bad
dreams, or you dream so hard all night long that you don't feel rested
in the morning, then you had better speak to your mother about it, and
let her see what is the matter with your digestion or your nerves, or
take you to a doctor. Bad dreams are always a sign of ill health and
are a very disagreeable thing, from which there is no need that you
should suffer any more than from headache or indigestion or colic.
Dreams, of course, do not mean or foretell anything whatever, except
simply how bad, or good, the state of your digestion and your nerves
is.
Now, how much time should you spend in bed? Well, I think at your age
nearly half the time. Ten or eleven hours of sleep make you ready for
all the hours of work and play, and you don't become cross and tired
half so easily if you have plenty of sleep. Though you are lying so
quietly, you are not by any means wasting your time, for you probably
are growing faster when you are asleep than when awake. Babies, who
are growing very fast, you know, sleep nearly all the time.
So after you have opened all the windows wide, put out the light and
jump into bed and lie down for a good night's rest without thinking
about anything except how comfortable the bed feels when you are
tired.