Sleep : Night Dresses, Body Posture

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

(Page 17 of 25)

The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night, any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot rays of the sun.

The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.

Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the day-time - and which must be already more or less filled with the effluvia of our bodies.

It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to supply the place of the shirt during the night, may be of calico in the summer, and of flannel in the winter.

The collar and wristbands of this night dress should be loose; and the whole garment should be large and long. No article of dress should ever press upon our bodies, so as in the least to impede the circulation; and for this reason it is, that writers on physical education have inveighed so much against cravats, straps, garters, &c. This caution, so important to all, is doubly so to young mothers, on whom devolves the management of the tender infant.

When the child has been perspiring freely during the evening, just before he is undressed, or when he has just been subjected to the warm bath, it may be well to use a little care in undressing and exchanging clothes, to prevent taking cold; - though it should ever be remembered, that those children who are managed on a rational system will bear slight exposures with far more safety, than they who have been managed at random - sometimes, indeed, with great tenderness, but at others, wholly neglected.

7. Posture of the Body

In early infancy, children who are not stuffed rather than fed, may occasionally be permitted to sleep on their backs, especially if they incline to do so. But it will be well to encourage them to sleep on one side, as soon as you can without great inconvenience.

The right side, as a general rule, is preferable; because the stomach, which lies towards the left side, is thus left uncompressed, and digestion undisturbed. I would not, however, require a child to lie always on the right side, but would occasionally change his position, lest he should become unable to sleep at all, except in a particular manner.

I have said elsewhere, that the head ought to be a little raised, especially if the child is liable to diseases of the brain. But this remark, rather hastily thrown out, requires explanation.

There is so much blood sent by the heart to the head and upper parts of the system of infants, as to predispose those parts, especially the brain, to disease. In a horizontal position of the body, there is more blood sent to the brain than when the body is erect. This will show the reader, at once, that if the infant is peculiarly exposed to diseases of the brain - and it certainly is so - he ought to remain in a horizontal posture as little as possible, except during sleep; and that even then it is desirable to make his bed in such a manner as to elevate the head and shoulders as much as we can without compressing the lungs, or obstructing the circulation in the neck.

I recommend, therefore, to raise the head of an infant's bedstead a little higher than the foot; though not so much as to incline him to slide downwards into the bed, for that would be to produce one evil in curing another.

Sir Charles Bell thinks that the common disease of infants called diabetes, arises from their being permitted to sleep on their backs; and that by breaking up the habit of lying in this position, and accustoming them to lie on their sides, we shall prevent it. I doubt whether the effect here referred to, is ever the result of such a cause. Still I am as much opposed to the habit of sleeping on the back, as Sir Charles Bell. It is quite injurious to free respiration.

Closely allied to the subject of bodily position in general, is the state of particular organs; especially the stomach and the senses. I have already intimated that in order to have an infant sleep quietly, it is desirable to darken the room. This is the more necessary, where infants are unnaturally wakeful. In such cases, not only light should be excluded from the eye, but sounds from the ear, odors from the nostrils, &c. A remarkably full stomach is in the way of going quietly to sleep, whether the person be old or young. Neither infants nor adults ought to take food for some time previous to their going to sleep for the night. Great bodily heat, as well as too great cold, is also unfavorable. If too hot, the temperature of the infant should be somewhat reduced by exposure to the air; if too cold, it should be raised in a natural, healthy, and appropriate manner.