Baby’s Comfort

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 24, 1907

Do not forget that the cool mornings and evenings are felt by the baby. The floor is the coldest place in the house, and the crawling or toddling baby should be protected from the sudden changes. Put on the light flannels, the long sleeves, and the high-neck dresses, the little stockings and shoes, even though you must remove part or all at midday. Do not let the little one crawl about on the bare floor with wet clothing, or with blue, mottled flesh. Much of a baby’s sickness is clearly traceable to thoughtless neglect during the changeable weather of the late summer and early autumn. It will not always do to “harden” the baby by letting it get through the variable temperatures as best it can. Young things must be kept warm, whether human or animal, and a healthy baby is never a cold, rough-skinned one. Whatever is neglected, don’t let it be the baby, whose “only language is a cry,” or something told only in signs of discomfort, anxiety, and fretfulness, because it has not yet learned how intelligibly to tell you of its troubles. Take good care of the baby.

Don’t forget the extra quilt or comfort laid beside the children’s bed, or your own, these cool nights, and do not close the windows and doors too soon. See that there is fresh air, though there must be additional covering at hand for any change.

Don’t send the little ones out to school without making some provision to meet the rapid lowering of temperature which sometimes, at this season, converts the warm, sunny morning into the cold, windy, or wet afternoon. It is better to put on an additional outside wrap for a month or more yet, than to put on the thick woolen underwear which, though at the time comfortable, may be a source of great discomfort if the weather should become suddenly warm. Colds, coughs, catarrhs, and a tendency to rheumatic and other ailments, are surely “in the air,” these deceptive autumn days.— Selected.