Of course the baby's bottle food should be warm—about the same as breast milk, or " blood heat "; that is, as warm as the inside of the mouth.
Keep the Baby Clean and It Will Stand the Heat Better.—When the thermometer is at eighty or ninety in the shade, it isn't easy to keep the baby cool. But it can always be kept clean and will then be more com fortable and have a better chance of living through the hot weather. It should have at least one full bath every day and oftener during ex treme heat. Never bathe within one hour after feeding it. Bathe first; feed afterwards.
Dress as lightly as possible. It will be better stark naked, except for a napkin and binder, some hours a day during the hot weather when indoors. But keep it in the open air, out of the hot sun, as much as you can be tween sunrise and sunset. The out door air, even of a dirty street, is fresher and better than the air in the house.
Fresh air is the breath of life in a baby's nostrils. Take it or send it to the parks, or open squares, or the lake shore as often as you can.
In the changeable summer climate of Chicago, care must be taken against sudden chilling. A thin, soft flannel binder, wound two or three times around the body, will do more to guard against this chilling than the ordinary full dress of frock, vest, skirts, drawers, socks, etc.
This binder should be only wide enough to cover the belly, an inch or so above the navel and a couple of inches below. It should be wound smooth and. free from creases or folds, and fitted with a few stitches of soft darning cotton—not pins.
This binder and a napkin are all the dress a baby needs during the heat of the day in the house in summer.
Do Not Let the Baby Sleep in the Same Bed with any Other Person. —If there is no crib, the mother should put a couple of chairs at her bedside, with any sort of soft cover ing on them—not feather pillows or hot woolen stuffs—and let the baby sleep there. It will be more com
fortable on a summer night than ly ing against the hot body of its mother, and will not be so apt to dis turb or be disturbed.
The backs of the chairs will keep the baby from falling, and the motber can readily reach over to care for it when necessary.
Do Not Drug the Bahy.—If after all your care the baby should fall sick, do not " pour drugs of which you know nothing into a body of which you know less." There is no mother in the city of Chicago that cannot get the best of medical treatment for her sick baby without money and without price, if she is unable to pay. Call a doctor instead of spending money for patent medicines, " soothing sirups " or " cure-alls," which will probably do your baby more harm than good.
Although this advice is more di rectly for babies during the first year of life, the sense of it applies quite as well to older children.
Don't overfeed there, and don't let them overfeed themselves.
Don't give them rich food—meats, gravies, pastries, cake, etc.—nor a great variety. The simpler and plain er the better—plenty of milk, whole wheat bread, oatmeal, baked pota toes, baked apples, and fresh fruit of all kinds, in season, but be sure the fruit is ripe and fresh. Roast and stews and made dishes and—pie will come soon enough and so will dys pepsia.
Keep up the daily full bath until it becomes a fixed habit.
Keep them out in the open air as much as possible the whole year round, and send them into the coun try whenever you can do so, but only to places where the water is pure.
If a baby or child is worth having, it is worth saving, and more than half of the babies and young children that die (in Chicago) every year could be saved by following the ad vice here given.