A THEORETICAL BABY.
by C. W. Lyman, M. D.
Reported by request of Dr. Holbrook.
It was our first baby. I was making a living as a doctor by writing articles on the general care of the health; and my wife before her marriage had been a kindergartner, a trainer of kindergartners, and a lecturer to mothers on the scientific and expert methods of rearing children aright. We believed in the theories we had taught, and our baby got nothing else from the start. According to the first applied theory, we made our temporary home before the boy began to be, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado; and were a large part of the time either in our garden or on horseback, in this perfect outdoor climate. My wife was entirely in love with me, and I made each day count for nothing more certainly than to deserve and return that sentiment of hers. We lived simply but freely, and had next to no anxieties. My wife had practiced general gymnastics for years; but for months prior to the birth of her boy, she every day went through with a series of special maternal gymnastics, by which the muscles that aid in parturition can be made [186]strong and entirely to be relied upon. We were rewarded for this outlay of time in a delivery that was rapid and easy, without more than an ounce of hæmorrhage, and everything so perfectly controlled that—except for the inconvenience of it—the presence and aid of the physician (myself) might have been dispensed with. Recovery was rapid also. My wife made no haste to get up, keeping quiet most of the time for two weeks, to ensure good milk. But she did a family washing without effort after three weeks, and was on horseback again by the sixth week. The baby was not severed from his mother till ten minutes after birth (ensuring a better blood supply). Then he got no bath, no food, no dressing process; but was simply swathed in cotton batting and laid aside for six hours in a padded box-bed, surrounded by bottles of hot water, and covered with plenty of soft blankets, to sleep and get used to his new environment. On the second day we began rubbing him daily from head to foot with vaseline. His first bath, with a flannel cloth dipped in warm milk diluted with soft water and without soap, came when he was a week old, and was followed by the thorough rub with vaseline. This bath he has had nearly every day up to date. He has often cried, or crowed and begged for this bath; but never cried during its performance, except when his clothes were being replaced. On the contrary, he enjoys every moment of it.
[187]Feeding began with a meal every hour of the twenty-four, for the first week. Then night feeding was reduced to two meals, and he was fed every two hours, from four or five o'clock in the morning till nine at night, till two months old. About then he began sleeping right through the nights; and until three months old was fed every three hours of the day time; then for a month he went four hours between his meals. At his fourth month began the present regime of four meals per diem. Now and then he has cried in the night from thirst, and a few spoonsful of cold water have sufficed to send him off to sleep again. All in all, I think I could count on my fingers the times that he has wakened us out of hours, and not once has anyone walked the floor with him. In fact, no diversions of this sort have ever been practiced on him. He has never been rocked to sleep; whenever cross or fretful in the day, we have known that sleep was all he needed, and into his little bed he has been promptly plumped, and covered with a loosely knit afghan, tented on a light framework, which we call "the extinguisher." Here shut away and entirely unnoticed he soon learned to give himself up to his own reflections, and then presently to sleep. Thus we have kept down the first great nuisance of ordinary infancy, namely, egoism and a habit of howling for attention when no attention is really needed. But social relations, [188]and those of the gayest, he has constantly with both his parents. We take up and make into play with him each idea of his own. We have shown him some finger-plays. In the main we leave him to originate his own amusements.
From the keeping of stomach and bowels absolutely healthy, by a regular and reasonable exercise of their all-important functions, not only has the boy been free from irritability, and spontaneously happy and self-amused, sometimes quiet, and sometimes jolly to overflowing. But the second great nuisance of those ordinarily attending baby-raising, namely, sour stomach followed by colic, was eliminated. A secondary result of this entire regularity of functioning at the upper end of the alimentary canal was that a like regularity set in at the other end. That is, at the thirteenth week he began to have but one daily passage of fæcal matter, and that soon after breakfast. Of the approach of this act he notified his mother without fail, and thereafter we had no soiled diapers. Movements were received on pieces of old cloth, and cloth and all tossed into a pan of ashes, or the fire, when we had one. When, at six months, we put him onto cow's milk, mixed with thin graham porridge, to supply the extra nourishment demanded by rapid growth, he went up to two movements per diem—morning and evening. Thus, the third great nuisance of of diaper washing was eliminated, in its more [189]disagreeable feature. Eructation of curds, rashes, colic, diarrhœa—these common ailments of ordinary babyhood, we have never had a sight of. We believe it due solely to strict adherence to the four-meals-a-day plan. These consist of an early breakfast, a later breakfast, a dinner about one o'clock and a supper between six and seven. The bath comes at any convenient time. On pleasant days, even in winter, he is outdoors, well wrapped, in a chair, for hours, and often has a long nap there. He was provided, by my own needle and penknife, with an ample fur sleeping sack, into which he is securely buttoned every evening and laid in his box-bed, on a trunk. He never sleeps with his parents. According to the coolness or coldness of the nights, additional covering, in the shape of soft blankets and shawls, is laid in on the box, their weight supported by the edges of the box. He cannot uncover himself, but he can kick freely, and use his arms. We dressed him, from the first, in the "Gertrude" system of baby clothes, introduced by Dr. Grosvenor, of Chicago—all woolen princess garments, with shirring strings at the lower hems, by which they are made closed bags, ending just below the feet; warm, but allowing of kicking ad libitum. At five months—it being winter time—he went into short clothes, including solid suits of warm flannel underwear, shirts, drawers and long snug-fitting stockings. He has never had a cold. [190]His muscles, from the first (due to his mother's gymnastics), were firm and active, like those of an adult. At the fourth week he surprised us by suspending his entire weight from his hands and arms one morning. Legs, neck, back and hands particularly have developed steadily in power and quickness. There was never any fat deposited—that avant courier of so much infant mortality—yet he is, and has been all along, a rosy, plump, dimpled baby, or boy, rather, for babyhood very early lost its hold on him. Too often children seem finally to emerge from the miseries and ailments of a tedious infancy and to take on, at last, individuality and distinct character at the second or third year. This child, per contra, having never had a sensation of illness, or of pain, save honest hunger, has seemed to be a happy little boy almost from the first, alert or thoughtful, shouting or cooing, laughing and crowing, especially after his meals and movements, studying the world of things about him by the hour, keenly appreciative of colors and of music, and preferring some sorts to others, his face crossed by vivid changes of expression, wonder, merriment, surprise, reverie—all as perfect at six months as ordinarily seen at three years. He has good color from head to foot, is pale when hungry, but the moment a bit of food is down expands to his most genial flow of spirits. Immediately after his day-time naps his cheeks are regularly flushed and [191]rosy. His spirits become more pronounced toward each evening, reaching their high-point of talking, laughing, crowing and squealing at just about bed-time. He keeps it up for some time after being tucked away for the night, till sleep masters him; and begins where he left off early next morning. All this is good physiology. So happy day succeeds happy day, and we trust and hope that many good tendencies are getting a fair start in a harmonious and spontaneous beginning of this great work of growing up that we are fostering but not forcing.
At One Year Old.—Everything continues as begun. Teething at times causes slight transient fretfulness, and more cold water is drunk. The bowels remain absolutely regular. The all-night sleep (never "put to sleep,") and two day-time naps are unchanged, in all thirteen or fourteen hours of sleep per diem. On warm days he needs and gets plenty of cool water to drink, often two-thirds of a pint at a time. Talking, standing and creeping he has attained by his own unaided initiative (this on principle). As for amusements, he invents his own always, except when engaged in social exchange with his father and mother, and in these, too, we are careful that he makes at least half the advances.
On particular occasions he comes in need of mothering—and gets it. On all others he simply [192]lives with two big but highly sympathetic playfellows; and he has developed separate lines of play and talk for each. Often he chooses to alternate as between two poles of attraction, turning his face to his mother's for her sympathy between shouts to his father, or vice versa. From week to week we notice that the older plays are mostly dropped one by one, and fresh ones invented. All, however, are real and vivid to him.
In early prospect we have but two more points to compass. Perfect health in all respects he has intact. Self-control and self-sufficiency, both in amusing himself and in enduring lesser ills, such as bumps and mild degrees of hunger, he is getting as fast as growth permits. But obedience and responsibility will soon be needed in his repertoire. Negative obedience his mother is obtaining already in response to "No, no," and shakes of the head. Positive obedience will be the far more vital thing to secure—just as soon as he can help in little ways. Here we hope to make him responsible as far as can be for the welfare, safety and amusement of younger playfellows, whether brother or sister it is now too soon to say.
At Eighteen Months.—A cold douche has, for three months past, ended his morning bath, regularly given by his father after his sister arrived, and his weight became considerable. This douche, poured slowly from a dipper until redness set in, [193]has added markedly to his spirits, muscular activity and digestive capacity. It causes screaming at the moment, but an instant later, as three Turkish towels are wrapped closely about him, his exuberance is delightful to see. Coincidently he has taken up a selected diet of solid food, including chocolate and cooked fruits, and will have but one nap, though often that is a long one.
As the child is working out of babyhood, every day counting (as no day of half illness in childhood can count), and well into boyhood, the single principle already outlined, of leaving the little individuality to establish its own activities and socialities, seems sufficient, as the illustrations appended, I believe, prove. Doubtless a child that is not, day after day, enjoying, and often thrilled by health and life, as this little boy is, a child not brought up in an unbroken camaraderie with both parents, such as he has had, and particularly a child not having the send-off of trust and amiable impulse which he received before his birth, could not be left to blossom in such wild-flower style. Ugly, sulky or "streaky" conduct, jumping perversely out in place of good cheer, we have never had to deal with. In fact, we have never been able to detect the slightest resentment immediately after punishing him for taking forbidden articles, or for raising an outcry over being denied sundry things he wanted. His crying when punished is that of pure grief, and he [194]is ready at once to nestle down under the hand that had spatted disapproval, to be comforted, resuming good spirits two or three minutes later on. In the main, simply "No, no!" from either parent, has sufficed to stop him in the beginnings of mischief, sometimes resulting in cheerful desisting, and sometimes in a little of what we call the "grieved cry." But this, too, if it becomes loud or insistent, can be hushed by another "No, no," and enable him to regain control of himself. With this regained self-control has always come gratefulness for aid in the matter, as evinced by extra sweetness and brightness immediately after, and eager resumption of some one or other of his plays or calls with one or both of us. This may be what is known as discipline. It always brings a smile to our faces, however.
Without a break of more than a day or two at a time, we have been able to be equally near him all the while, and divide up about equally the matters of bathing, feeding, dressing and undressing him. The conventional estimate of those standing nearest to a child of,
1—Mother,
2—Nurse,
3—Teacher,
4—Servants and playmates,
5—Older brother or sister,
6—Father—the man behind the newspaper,
[195]certainly does not apply here. When I am absent for from three to six hours his uneasiness sets in, and grows stronger and stronger, ending in repeated expeditions to a short distance along the road, where he stands and calls "Vager," "Vager," (Father, Father,) at first hopefully, then protestingly, and sometimes at last with indignation or tears. When I return—and he listens and catches the first distant sound of hoofs, or wheels, or whinny of the left-at-home colts, or voice, or opening gate—an eager, beaming face welcomes me from gate or doorway, or even several rods down the beaten snow on the road. Once back, things are all right in his little domain again, and he goes on, without special attention to me, in his series of occupations and plays.
I say "occupations." They are nothing else to him; serious matters that he goes about accomplishing. He is at his best when he can help his mother at her work—blowing the fire, bringing her kindling, handing her clothespins one by one as she needs them, shutting or opening doors on request, picking up articles from the floor. But there are many hours continuously when he is left to his own devices, which are numerous, though many of them he goes through daily, such as feeding the cat, visiting his little sister, emptying and refilling the wall-pockets, collecting his blocks, and fishing articles off the table with a long stick. He has learned, untaught, to get a cloth to open the stove door with [196]and save burned fingers; to get and bring clean diapers to his mother when he wishes a change; to stoop and lap water out of the pail; to stand by his bed and point up at it when wishing his mid-day nap; to retreat to a dark corner and drape his handkerchief over his head for a brief period towards the close of a day, in lieu of the discarded second nap; to scoop bread or biscuit out of a pail hung above his reach, with an iron spoon; to lasso peaches toward him with a cord, said peaches being in pan on the floor just beyond where he could reach from a little gate separating the kitchen and sitting-room. None of these things has been taught him. Nothing whatever has been taught him, and especially no words and no "tricks." He invents or does without, in all non-essential matters, in regular Spartan style. So, in pursuit of his own undertakings, he rarely asks for what he would have; just tries and tries, day after day, until he succeeds or is beaten. But as he is at some new act or plan much of the time when left to himself, he has, we are satisfied, independently attained to more of childish accomplishment than the most incessant teaching processes could have effected. In doing what he does do, for instance, in certain climbing feats, he has slowly worked up to, he is both cautious and sure; he rarely tumbles and never loses his confidence. Thus for the past two days he has achieved the feat of climbing up and [197]standing erect on a little box fourteen inches high, where he calls and shouts and roars to us his ecstacy over the matter for ten minutes at a time. Today only he has found out how to get down alone. Contrast is taken here with the frequent falls and wailings of children who are first persuaded into attempts of various sorts, but have not worked out a real personal mastery of given acts for themselves.
He has quite a vocabulary now of his own invention. The meanings of these terms we have learned mostly, and use them to him. Of our vocabulary he understands the meanings of a large number of the words for things in which he is interested, forty or fifty nouns, and a dozen verbs, perhaps. He sings to his mother, and now and then to me, rude imitations of the songs he has heard us sing, and his mother he roughly accompanies. His inflections of voice have developed to the point of entirely expressing many of his emotions; while his expressions of face are as much beyond these as the inflections are beyond his stock of English—about seven words, and those requiring some exigency to bring out.
All this pleases us, because we truly want him to become rich in his own life, to subsist and grow in his own home-made lines of feeling and thought; and not to learn words, parrot-like, before he has the thought formed, and searching, even struggling, [198]for a means by which to convey itself. It is dearth of internal life, emotion and unaided thought that is in need of replenishment in the average young person, not lack of English dictionary terms for things that can be talked about, but are evidently not intrinsic and personal.
C. W. Lyman, M. D.
New Castle, Col.