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The Care of Babies: Whey

Whey.-Warm one pint of milk to blood heat and add one teaspoonful of essence of pepsin or one junket tablet. Let stand until it jellies, then break up the curds with a fork and strain through muslin. Whey is sometimes used to advantage when the baby cannot digest cow's milk.

Solid Foods. The cutting of the eighth incisor or front teeth, which occurs usually during the twelfth month, may be taken as nature's indication that the child requires other food than milk. At this time if the infant is well and strong, a little stale bread, at least one day old, may be given with fresh milk in place of one of the regular feedings.

This may soon be supplemented by a small quantity of well cooked hominy, oatmeal or cornmeal mush. But keep in mind constantly the fact that milk is the most important article of the diet, and that these foods are merely supplementary. Do not feed the baby any of the ready-cooked or pre-digested breakfast foods. Buy the natural cereals and cook them at home. Cereals should be cooked at least three hours in a double boiler, or preferably over night in a fireless cooker. They should be strained through cheese cloth or muslin.

If the above foods are taken without difficulty and no bad results are observed, give stale bread liberally buttered. This satisfies the infant's desire for solid food and also affords an easily digested and nourishing form of fat.

At fifteen months, a soft boiled egg may be given as the noon feeding.

About the middle of the second year, or when sixteen teeth have developed, other and more solid foods may be given. But throughout the entire period of infancy, food other than milk should be selected and prepared with the greatest care and given in moderation. During the second year children are almost invariably overfed.

Diet of Older Children. - Between one and a half and two and a half years of age a child may have bread and butter, orange, potatoes and certain other vegetables, certain fruits and certain meats. The bread should be at least one day old and may include toast, zwieback, graham, oatmeal and gluten crackers. Porridge may be oatmeal, rice (cooked three hours), hominy (cooked six hours), farina (cooked one hour), cornmeal (cooked two hours), barley meal or wheaten grits. All should be thoroughly cooked for the time stated, or over night in a fireless cooker.

Strain through cheese cloth or muslin and serve with certified or pasteurized milk. The meat may be rare roast beef, fresh cooked mutton or chicken. All should be finely minced.

The vegetables may be well cooked spinach or potato. The latter should be fed in small quantities, freshly baked and lightly broken up and salted. Potato is a starchy food and hard for an infant to digest. It is much more wholesome baked than boiled. The fruit may be ripe apples (better baked), grapes, freed from the stones and skins, stewed prunes and orange pulp, freed from the fibrous portion. Fruit should be given in great moderation, if at all, in summer. Other suitable foods are baked custards or junket.

A piece of rare roast beef to suck, bread with dish gravy (not the heavy thickened and highly seasoned gravy) and soft boiled or poached eggs may form additions to the dietary which may be extended gradually to meet developments as the baby grows into childhood. But either for an infant or a child, overfeeding is far more injurious than underfeeding.

Improper Foods. - Hundreds of infants have been killed by the mistakes of parents in giving them other THE CARE OF BABIES and improper foods. Never feed the baby at the table from the food prepared for other members of the family. The table foods may be poisonous to the infant. Never give a child under two years of age ham, bacon, or pork in any other form; cabbage, pickles or other succulent vegetables; coffee, tea, beer, wine, cider or any other alcoholic liquor of any kind; bananas, berries or other fruit except orange juice or pulp, prune juice and stewed or baked apple. Do not give pie or pastry, nuts, cake, candy, ice cream, or any other kind of sweets. Above all never dope your baby with drugs, nostrums, or patent foods of any kind, relying upon the statements of unprincipled manufacturers, druggists or other venders, or those who have "tried and can recommend them." Such advice is often as ignorant as it is well intended. The kind of medicine or food preparation which may agree with your neighbor's baby may totally disagree with yours.

Don't experiment with your baby. If you think it needs medicine or a change of food consult a competent physician to find out what is the matter. Then be guided implicitly by his advice.