Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — How to Treat the Little Ones. [ARTICLE]

How to Treat the Little Ones.

The baby’s night-gown should be white flannel. The red flannel many mothers fancy may poison its skin. The old-time red dyes were well enough, but the present reds are all poisonous and should not be worn next to the skin by either old or young. They are particularly mischievous to the delicate skin of our young people. All of the modern dyes are poisonous. If there are any exceptions I have not been able to learn the fact, although I have taken pains to question those who are engaged in the dyeing business. The little ones should have white flannel next their skins day and night. It is the only proper material to place next the skins of any human being Jay or night, no matter in what climate or at what season of the year. Perhaps I ought to add that the superiority of flannel is greater during the summer than during the winter. In the hottest weather a single thickness of flannel for a night-gown will give the baby abundant protection, whereas if it wears cotton next the skin it is soon wet with perspiration and then there must be two or three more thicknesses over it to furnish the protection against a breeze which a single thickness of flannel next the skin could afford. Our little people should have their night-dresses made with drawers closed at the bottom. With this dress and lying upon a fresh straw pillow, with the same for the little head and sleeping in a little room, the small shaver will have a chance, even in the hottest season, to not only sleep sweetly, but to grow. Besides these and other considerations which I will not name the woolen dress serves, by its mechanical irritation, to keep up a better circulation in the skin. Don’t rock them. Don’t rock them either in crib or chair. The motion is an unhealthy one. Try it yourself! Rock yourself steadily for half an hour and see how you feel. lam glad that rockers are going out of fashion. They have.injured thousands of our little people. Don’t push them backward. Many adults can’t ride backward in the cars or in a carriage. When you have your little chap out for a ride in his little carriage don’t push him backward. I have often noticed the little passengers as they were jolted along backward, off one stone and up another, turning their eyes this way and that in a painfully-bewil-dered way. The only avenue to their souls is that through the eyes. Pray don’t set that one all topsy-turvy. • Don’t churn its brains. Don’t bounce it on your knee or give it that great toss up and down in your hands. No one but a first-class tumbler can stand such nonsense. How many fatal'diseases of the head have originated in this common practice of the nursery must have been very large. And I have no doubt that a still greater number must have been hurt who have contrived to survive the Stupid blunder. If you think your baby likes exercise rub and knead its little naked body gen- • tly,but thoroughly, morningand evening. This will do wonders in giving the little fellow not only much from your vital magnetism, but will contribute *to its circulation and the activity of its Abdominal viscera.— Dio Lewis. —An aristocratic but economical matron in Chicago has bought a forty-cent tea-bell .and invented a paragon of servant, whose only imperfection is her deafness. ~When she has company at tea the mistress rings and rings for the cake basket, or more hot water, or something, then, with the remark that Jane gets dealer and deafer every day, goes for it herself and returns, maintaining a vert triloquial conversation with the imaginary Jane all the way up the basement stairs. “ The champion dead-head has been discovered in a legislator who, having received a free pass from a railroad company, and not having occasion to use it, actually called at the Superintendent’s office and asked if they were willing to give him the value of the ticket in money?” We might believe this story if the relator had mentioned that the legislator informed the Superintendent that he had made arrangements to borrow the pass of his colleague, and so didn’t need his own.— Milwaukee Smtitui.