If put to rest at a later period of the day, it will
invariably cause a bad night.
At first the infant should sleep with its parent. The low temperature
of its body, and its small power of generating heat, render this
necessary. If it should happen, however, that the child has disturbed
and restless nights, it must immediately be removed to the bed and care
of another female, to be brought to its mother at an early hour in the
morning, for the purpose of being nursed. This is necessary for the
preservation of the mother's health, which through sleepless nights
would of course be soon deranged, and the infant would also suffer from
the influence which such deranged health would have upon the milk.
When a month or six weeks has elapsed, the child, if healthy, may
sleep alone in a cradle or cot, care being taken that it has a
sufficiency of clothing, that the room in which it is placed is
sufficiently warm, viz. 60 degrees, and the position of the cot itself
is not such as to be exposed to currents of cold air. It is essentially
necessary to attend to these points, since the faculty of producing
heat, and consequently the power of maintaining the temperature, is
less during sleep than at any other time, and therefore exposure to
cold is especially injurious.
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