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The Care of Babies: Brush

Boil the nipple at least once daily for twenty minutes while the milk bottles are being boiled. Rinse the nip- (a) Brush a M C (a) Brush for cleaning bottle; (b) use a bottle and nipple like this; (c) don't use a "baby killer" like this. ple in boiling water before using it.

Don't put it into your mouth to find out whether the milk is warm enough, nor let the nurse do so. To test its temperature, let a few drops of milk fall on your wrist.

Weaning.-Ask your doctor how long you ought to nurse your baby.

It will depend partly upon your state of health, and partly upon the season of the year. Some mothers ought to wean their infants at six months, others may nurse them a full year.

The average is about nine or ten months. Nursing the child too long is an unnecessary drain upon the mother. There is also great danger of injury to the child. Don't wean your baby as long as he is gaining in weight, and never do so except by the advice of your physician. His advice is better than that of your neighbors. If the baby remains well but stops gaining weight, don't conclude that your milk does not agree with it.

Consult your physician about the use of some artificial food to help you out. Wean gradually by giving one breast meal less each week and teach the baby to drink from a cup or bottle. This is better for the baby. Sudden weaning is apt to cause serious illness.

With the advice and consent of your physician, you may begin during the fifth or sixth month to teach the baby to take food and water from a bottle. Thus the baby will be fed for some time with both breast milk and artificial food, and there will be time for his stomach to adjust itself to the change. This plan will materially decrease both the difficulties and dangers of weaning. It also helps you to extend the period of nursing. Every drop of breast milk the baby gets adds to his health and strength as no other food ever can.

In changing from breast milk to cow's milk, the milk used first should be very much diluted and modified unless the baby has been given a bottle in addition to the mother's milk. In weaning a six months old baby give the milk usually given to an infant one month old. If the baby is ten months old, give the milk usually given to a three months old baby.

Wet Nurses. -A true foster mother in good health and spirits and equally as devoted to the welfare of the child as though it were her own, would be the ideal substitute for an infant deprived of its mother's milk.

In practice, there are so many objections to the employment of the wet nurse that this plan is by no means as popular as in years past. The cost for board and wages is considerable and the difficulty of finding a suitable person is very great. The mother who yields her natural function to another must remember that if the nurse is not perfectly healthy she may infect the child with disease; if careless and ignorant, she may cause the death of the child through neglect; and if her own baby should chance to suffer through her employ- THE CARE OF BABIES ment, she may grieve or become so nervously excited as to make her milk unwholesome. She may also leave at any moment without warning.