As the hopes of families, and the comfort and happiness of parents
are confided to the charge of females who superintend nurseries of
children, no duties are more important, and none require more incessant
and unremitting care and anxiety. Every symptom of approaching disease
should be watched and reported to the parents or medical attendant
of the family, and in this respect, nothing should be concealed or
deferred till remedies are too late. In the daily washings, the state
of the skin should be examined and noticed, as well as the tongue
and the appetite, and spirits; and above all things, all chances of
accident or juvenile mischief should be guarded against and removed.
Windows should be fenced with bars, or the lower sashes nailed down;
knives and sharp instruments should be kept out of reach; scalding
water and dangerous ingredients secured from access; ponds and rivers
fenced in; ladders removed; and fire-places guarded by well-fastened
wire fenders.
This important Servant ought to be of a lively and cheerful
disposition, perfectly good tempered, and clean and neat in her habits
and person. She ought also to have been accustomed to the care and
management of young children, as all the junior branches of the family
are intrusted to her care and superintendence, confiding in her skill,
experience, and attention. She usually takes the sole charge of the
infant from its birth, when the parent suckles it: to assist her in the
management of this and the other children in the nursery, she has under
nurses assigned her, who are entirely under her controul.
The youngest nurse, or nursery-maid, usually rises about 6 o’clock
to light the fire, and do the household work of the nursery before
the children are up, perhaps about seven o’clock, at which time the
head nurse is dressed, and ready to bathe and wash them all over
with a sponge and warm water; after which they are rubbed quite dry
and dressed. This process, when there are several children, usually
occupies the nurses an hour, or an hour and a half, when their
breakfast is got ready, and the children are placed at their meal in
the most peaceable and orderly manner. After breakfast, if the weather
be favourable, the children are taken out by the assistant nurse, or
nursery maid, for air and exercise, an hour or perhaps two, but not so
long as to fatigue either of them. On their return, their hands and
feet are washed, if damp or dirty, after which they attend to their
lessons till dinner time. After dinner, if it be fine weather, the
children are again taken abroad for air and exercise, and on their
return again, after having their hands and feet washed, if necessary,
they are in due time, about eight o’clock, dressed and put to bed. The
Head Nurse finds ample employment during the whole day, in paying due
attention to her infant charge, in giving directions, and in seeing
that the whole business of the nursery is properly executed.
The sleeping room of the Nursery should be spacious, lofty, dry, airy,
and not suffered to be inhabited in the day time. No servants should
sleep in the same room, nor ought any thing to be done there that may
contaminate the air, in which so great a portion of infantine life is
to be spent. The consequences of vitiated air in bed-rooms are often
fatal. Feather-beds and bed-curtains ought to be proscribed, as tending
to debility; neither ought the beds to be placed too low, as the most
pernicious stratum of air is that nearest the floor.
The air of the sleeping room ought to be changed immediately on the
children’s leaving the room, by opening the windows and doors; the beds
ought, also, to be shaken up and left to cool; the slops cleared away;
and every thing made and kept perfectly clean. In damp or bad weather,
a fire must be made in the room to purify the air.
The management of infant children, has a more important influence
on the health and happiness of man, than is generally imagined;
as, at this period of existence, the foundation is laid either for
irremediable debility, or for _mental_ and _bodily_ vigour. An Infant,
consequently requires considerable care, and indefatigable personal
attention.
Its management for the first two months, cannot be too gentle, kind, or
tender. Nothing should be done at first that can give it uneasiness;
therefore, next to its health and well-being, regard should be had to
its disposition, and the regulation of its temper; with this view also,
the most rational way is to let the infant enjoy all the liberty it
possibly can, without being restrained by its clothing, or starved by
system. To set a child upright before the end of the first month is
hurtful: afterwards the nurse may begin to set it up and dance it by
degrees. It must be kept as dry as possible.
The clothing should be very light, and not too long, so that the legs
may be got at with ease, in order to have them often rubbed in the
day, with a warm hand, or flannel, and particularly the inside of
them. Rubbing the child all over takes off scurf, and promotes the
circulation of the blood.
A nurse ought to keep a child as little in her arms as possible, lest
the legs should be cramped, and the toes turned inwards. Let her always
keep the child’s legs loose. The oftener the posture is changed, the
better.
For the first fortnight or three weeks it should be always laid on
a bed, except when taken up to supply its wants, which will give it
habits of cleanliness at a very early age.
It may be very comfortably laid on a cushion, where it can be in no
danger of falling, nor of any thing falling on it. Some one should sit
by it, and divert and cheer it, if necessary, and take it up instantly,
when it expresses the least dissatisfaction. A nurse should make it a
strict rule, that the child should be in her own view, in whatever she
may be employed.
By slow degrees, the infant may be accustomed to exercise, both
within doors and in the open air: but it never should be moved about
immediately after sucking or feeding, as that will be apt to sicken it.
Exercise should be given it by carrying it about, and gently dandling
it in the arms; tossing an infant about, and exercising it in the open
air, in fine weather, is of the greatest service to it, in preventing
distortion. In cities, children ought not to be kept in hot rooms, but
to have as much air as possible; want of exercise being the cause of
rickets, large heads, weak joints, a contracted breast, and diseased
lungs, besides a numerous train of evils.
Endeavour to harden the body, but without resorting to violent means. A
child is constitutionally weak and irritable to a high degree; hence we
should endeavour to diminish this irritability, in order to procure it
the greatest happiness of life, a firm body, whence may result a sound
mind.
Such management is highly advantageous, as it will enable children to
support every species of fatigue and hardship, when they become adults.
The plan of hardening children may, however, be carried to excess. An
extravagant attempt to strengthen youth, deprives them of all their
natural susceptibility of excitement, renders them insensible, and
produces many bad effects, while they only acquire temporary energy,
which decreases as they advance in years, and is attended with an early
loss of their primitive vigour.
All attempts to render children hardy must, therefore, be made by
gradual advances: for nature admits of no sudden transition. When
children have once been accustomed to a hardy system of education, such
a plan must be strictly adhered to.
The child’s skin is to be kept perfectly clean by washing its limbs
morning and evening, and likewise its neck and ears; beginning with
warm water, till, by degrees, it will not only bear, but like to be
washed with cold.
After it is a month old, if it has no cough, fever, nor eruption, the
bath should be colder and colder (if the season be mild) and by degrees
it may be used as it comes from the spring. After carefully drying the
whole body, head, and limbs, a second dry soft cloth, somewhat warmed,
should be gently used, to take all the damp from the wrinkles or soft
parts of the body. Then rub the limbs; but when the body is rubbed,
take special care not to press upon the stomach or belly. On these
parts, the hand should move in a circle, because the bowels lie in that
direction. If the skin be chafed, hair-powder is to be used. The utmost
tenderness is necessary in drying the head; and a small, soft, brush,
lightly applied, is safer than a comb.
Clean cloths, every morning and evening, will tend greatly to a child’s
health and comfort.
The dress of the child by day should be light and loose, and for the
night, it may be a shirt, a blanket to tie on, and a thin gown to tie
over the blanket.
The unnecessary haste in which some nurses are accustomed to dress
children, cannot be too strongly reprehended. In addition to this
hurried dressing, its clothes are often injuriously tight. Pins should
never be used in an infant’s clothes; and every string should be so
loosely tied, that two fingers may be introduced under it. Bandages
round the head should be strictly forbidden, for to this error many
instances of idiotism, fits, and deformity, may be traced.
Never allow the infant to be held opposite to open doors and windows.
The air is beneficial, when it is in motion, and the weather is
moderate, but it should always have some covering besides that which it
wears in the house, when taken out; and it must not be laid on the cold
ground, nor allowed to step on it, when it begins to use its feet. The
intense heat of a summer day should likewise be avoided; excessive heat
or cold being equally injurious.
The wisest maxim in treating infants with respect to food and drink,
is to follow the simple dictates of nature; yet some nurses give them
wine, spirits, spices, sugar, &c. which the stomach of a grown person
would reject. At all times the utmost care will be necessary to avoid
hurting its gums when feeding it. Its food should be gradually cooled
in a saucer, and it should be given to it in a small spoon, only half
filled, which will save its clothes from being soiled, and keep its
bosom dry. Let it swallow one small portion, before another is offered,
and raise its head, that it may pass the gullet easily. Never entice or
press it to take more, if it once refuses, for it knows best when it
has had enough.
As long as it has its mother’s milk, no other sustenance will be
wanting, if she be a good nurse. If there should be the least doubt
of her having milk enough, the child may have cow’s milk, mixed with
two-thirds soft boiled water, presented to its lips very frequently;
but it never should be urged to accept it.
Rising early in the morning is good for all children, provided they
awake of themselves, which they generally do; but they ought never to
be waked out of their sleep. As soon as possible, however, they should
be brought to regular sleep in the day.
Children, till they are two or three years’ old, must never be suffered
to walk so long at a time as to be weary.
In laying a child to sleep, it should be placed on the right side
oftener than on the left. Laying it on its back when it is awake, is
enough of that posture, in which alone it can move its legs and arms
with freedom.
Infants cannot sleep too long; and it is a favourable symptom when they
enjoy calm and continued rest, of which they should by no means be
deprived, as this is the greatest support granted to them by nature.
Sleep promotes a more calm and uniform circulation of the blood, and
it facilitates assimilation of the nutriment received. The horizontal
posture, likewise, is the most favourable to the growth and bodily
developement of the infant.
Sleep ought to be in proportion to the age of the infant, and this
salutary refreshment should fill up the greater part of a child’s
existence. After the age of six months, the periods of sleep, as well
as all other animal functions, may, in some degree, be regulated;
yet, even then, a child should be suffered to sleep the whole night,
and several hours both in the morning and afternoon. Nurses should
endeavour to accustom infants, from the time of their birth, to sleep
in the night in preference to the day, and for this purpose they will
remove all external impressions which may disturb their rest, but
especially they ought to avoid obeying every call for taking them up,
and giving food at improper times.
To awaken children from their sleep with a noise, or in an impetuous
manner, is certainly injudicious and hurtful; nor is it proper to
carry them from a dark room immediately into a glaring light, against
a dazzling wall; for the sudden impression of light debilitates the
organs of vision, and causes weak eyes from early infancy.
Infants are sometimes very restless at night, which is generally owing
either to their eating a heavy supper, to their tight night-clothes, or
their being over-heated by too many blankets.
Wages 18_l._ to 25_l._ Perquisites at christenings.
_Diseases of Children, &c._