Babies - Growth and Development : Part 5

The Mother and Her Child
by William S. Sadler, M.D., Lena K. Sadler, M.D.

(Page 28 of 44)

If the training of the bowels and bladder will replace the diapers with drawers, the baby will attempt to walk sooner than when encumbered with a bungle some bunch of diaper between the thighs. The little fellow runs alone at sixteen months and thoroughly enjoys it, and the wise mother will pay no attention to the small bumps which are going to come plentifully at this particular time.

Summary of Baby's Development

He discovers his hands at three or four months. At six months he sits alone, plays with simple objects, grasps for objects, and laughs aloud from the third to the fifth month. He says "goo goo" at four or five months. At one year he should stand with support, listen to a watch tick, follow moving objects, know his mother, play little games, such as rolling a ball, should have trebled his birth weight, and have at least six teeth, and should use three words in short sentences.

At eighteen months he should say "mamma" spontaneously, walk and run without support, should have quite a vocabulary, should be able to perform small errands like "pick up the book," and should have twelve to sixteen teeth. At two years he should be interested in pictures, able to talk intelligently, and know where his eyes, nose, mouth, hands, and feet are. At three years, he should enumerate the objects in a picture, tell his surname, and repeat a sentence with six words.

In the case of a premature baby or a very delicate child, or as a result of a prolonged illness or a very severe sickness, such as spinal meningitis, the time of these mental and physical developments may all be postponed, while rickets, which will be spoken of later, is often the cause of late sitting, late standing, and late walking.

Diet after the First Year

Milk is the principal article of diet during the second year. It should be given with regularity at distinct intervals of four meals a day. It may be given from the nursing bottle, unless the child has acquired the bottle habit and refuses to eat anything else but the food from his bottle, in which case it should be given from a cup. Beginning with the sixth month, aside from his milk, be it breast milk or bottle milk, he is to be given orange juice once each day as well as the broth from spinach and other vegetables. This is necessary to give the child certain salts which are exceedingly essential to the bottle baby.

At the close of the year when he is taking whole milk he should be given arrowroot cracker, strained apple sauce, prune pulp, fig pulp, mashed ripe banana (mashed with a knife), a baked potato with sauce or gravy (avoiding condiments), and a coddled egg. Fruit juices may be added to the diet, such as grape, pineapple, peach, and pear juice. Later in the second year he may be given stale bread and butter, and for desserts he may have cup custard, slightly sweetened junket, and such fruit desserts as baked apple and baked pear.

We do not think it is necessary to give children much meat or meat juices. We appreciate that there is a diversity of opinion upon this subject, but we do not hesitate to say that in the families where meat is little used, the children seem to grow up in the normal manner with sound healthy bodies, sometimes having never tasted it. When meat is used, it should be well cooked to avoid contamination with such parasites as tapeworm and trichina; it should also be well chewed before swallowing, as many of the intestinal disturbances of the older children are due to the swallowing of not masticated food such as half-chewed banana, chunks of meat, rinds of fruit, and the skins of baked potatoes.

Let the children's diet be simply planned, well cooked, thoroughly masticated, and above all things have regular meal hours, and no "piecing" between meals; and if the mother begins therefore early with her little fellow, she will be rewarded some later day by hearing him say to some well-meaning neighbor, who has just given him a delicious cookie or a bit of candy: "Thank you, I will keep it until meal time." Children learn one of the greatest lessons of self control in following the teaching that nothing should pass the lips between meals but water or a fruit-ade. Children in the second year require four meals a day, one of which is usually only the bottle or a cup of milk. These meals are usually taken at six, ten, two, and six in the evening. Oftentimes this early six o'clock meal is just a bottle or cup of milk, as may also be the evening meal.

Candy

Now, a word about candy. Pure candy is wholesome and nourishing. It is high in calorific value, and children should be allowed to have it if it does not enter the stomach in solutions stronger than ten or fifteen percent. We can see at a glance that chocolate creams, bonbons, and other soft candies should never be given to children. Candies that they can suck, such as fruit tablets, stick candy, sunshine candy, and other hard confections that are pure, and free from mineral colorings and other concoctions such as are commonly used in the cheaper candies, may safely be given at the close of the meals - but never between meals.

All such articles as tea, coffee, beer, soft candies, condiments, pastries, and fried foods, should be positively avoided in the case of all children under five and six years of age.

The diet from now on will be considered in the chapter "Diet and Nutrition."

About the Author

Dr. William S. Sadler M.D. was a well-known American psychiatrist and college teacher in the school of medicine at the University of Chicago. For over sixty years he practiced his profession in Chicago, thirty-three years being associated in practice with his wife, Dr Lena Kellogg Sadler. The doctors were pioneers in the research on the mysterious Urantia Papers.