Home › Some Kitchen Kinks › Some Kitchen Kinks: Take
Some Kitchen Kinks: Take
Take the nipple off after each feeding and at once boil both bottle and nipple for at least ten minutes. Before using again, rinse the bottle and nipple in water that has been boiled -about a quart of water with half a teaspoonful of soda in it-or keep them in a pan of soda and water when not in use. 66 More babies get "sore mouth" and wind colic" and summer complaint" for want of care of the nursing bottle than from any other one cause. A little stale milk around the neck of the bottle or in the nipple will set up a ferment which is poison to the delicate lining of a baby's mouth and throat and stomach.
Of course the baby's bottle food should be warm-about the same as breast milk, or "blood heat"; that is, as warm as the inside of the mouth.
Keep the Baby Clean and It Will Stand the Heat Better. - When the thermometer is at eighty or ninety in the shade, it isn't easy to keep the baby cool. But it can always be kept clean and will then be more comfortable and have a better chance of living through the hot weather. It should have at least one full bath every day and oftener during extreme heat. Never bathe within one hour after feeding it. Bathe first; feed afterwards.
Dress as lightly as possible. It will be better stark naked, except for a napkin and binder, some hours a day during the hot weather when indoors.
But keep it in the open air, out of the hot sun, as much as you can between sunrise and sunset. The outdoor air, even of a dirty street, is fresher and better than the air in the house.
Fresh air is the breath of life in a baby's nostrils. Take it or send it to the parks, or open squares, or the lake shore as often as you can.