Sleep : Air and Bed

The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health
by William A. Alcott

(Page 15 of 25)

3. Purity of the Air

The general importance of pure air has been mentioned. I have spoken of the elements of the atmosphere in which we live, of the manner in which it may be vitiated, and the consequences to health. I have shown - perhaps at sufficient length - the impropriety of washing, drying, and ironing clothes in the room where a child is kept; of cooking in the room, especially on a stove; of suffering the floor or clothes, particularly those of the child, to remain long wet, in the room; of smoking tobacco, using spirits, burning oil with too long a wick, &c.

All which has thus been said of the purity of the air of the nursery generally, is applicable to that of all sleeping rooms. It is an important point gained, when we can secure a nursery with folding doors in the centre, so as, when we please, to make two rooms of it. In that case, the division in which the bed is, can be completely ventilated a little before night, and thus be comparatively pure for the reception of both the mother and the child.

Shall the windows and doors where a child sleeps, be kept closed; or shall they be suffered to remain open a part or the whole of the night? This must be determined by circumstances. If there are no doors but such as communicate with apartments whose air is equally impure with that in which the child is, it is preferable to keep them closed. If the windows cannot be opened without exposing the child to a current of air, it is perhaps the less of two evils, not to open them.

But we are not usually driven to such extremities. In some instances, windows are constructed - and all of them ought to be - so that they can be lowered from the top. When this is not the case, something can be placed before the window to break the current, so that it need not fall directly upon the child. Closing the blinds will partially effect this, where blinds exist.

I have known many an individual who was in the habit of sleeping with his windows open during the whole year, and without any obvious evil consequences. Dr. Gregory was of this habit. But if adults - not trained to it - can acquire such a habit with impunity, with how much more safety could children be trained to it from the very first year. Macnish says, "there can be no doubt that a gentle current pervading our sleeping apartments, is in the highest degree ESSENTIAL TO HEALTH."

This consideration - I mean the impurity of sleeping rooms, even after every precaution has been used to keep them ventilated - affords one of the strongest inducements to going abroad early in the morning (especially when there is no other room which either adults or children can occupy) while the nursery or chamber is aired and ventilated. The utility of rising early, I hope no one can doubt; but some have doubts of the propriety of going abroad, till the dew has "passed away." Such should be reminded, by the foregoing train of remarks, that early walking may be a choice of evils; and that if it is on the whole advantageous to adults, it cannot be less so to children. And as soon as the sun has chased away the vapors of the night, if the weather is tolerable, most children should be carried abroad.

4. The Bed

This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this prohibition, especially to the feeble.

1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough, as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing weakness or debility.

2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority combine to pronounce them very injurious.

3. Feather beds - if used in the nursery - will inevitably discharge more or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender lungs of the infant.

Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds. They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost anything," he adds, "is preferable to feathers."

Macnish, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," objects strongly to air beds, and says that he can assert "from experience," that they are the very worst that can possibly be employed. My theories - for I have had no experience on the subject - would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who know my habits say I use less covering on my bed than almost any individual whom they have ever known.