But it is most important that there be no changing of arrangements from day to day, or from time to time. Whatever arrangement is found best must be adhered to, so that it be comes part of the child's habit.
Another point is that a sufficient interval must follow each meal before the next is given, three hours in case of a bottle meal, and four hours when the meal is more substantial.
Diet after the First Year requires the introduction of further variety. From this point we need no discrimination between in fants suckled by the mother and those hand reared.
The principles that have been followed up to this point must not be abandoned, viz.:— (1) Changes are not to be made suddenly.
(2) Fixed hours must be maintained.
(3) The interval between one meal and the next must be sufficient to permit the stomach to rest, after dealing with one meal, before being called on to digest another.
Inasmuch as, in most households, 8'30 or 9 a.m. is the earliest hour at which the infant's first meal can be conveniently prepared, and the infant will probably want some nourish ment earlier than this, 9 a.m. may be taken as the hour for breakfast, and a light meal can be given at 5 or 6 a.m. if the child wakes for it. This early meal can be given out of a bottle, or by this time the child may have been taught to drink out of a cup, and the meal will consist of ordinary milk. which has been heated the previous evening, as much for preserving purposes as anything else, and to which may have been added a little oat flour, plasmon, Benger's food, or similar preparation. The bill of fare becomes as follows: 6 a.m.: Cup of milk, slightly modified.
9 a.m.: Oat-flour porridge and milk; or rusk and milk.
I p.m.: A tea-cup of thin chicken or mutton soup with stale bread broken down into it, and beaten into a pulp; or a cup of milk with a little milk pudding.
5 p.m.: Milk with bread broken down in it, or rusk, or a tea-biscuit.
9 p.m.: Rusk and milk ; or porridge and milk.
If porridge is given in the morning, the last meal may be rusk and milk ; if the latter is given in the morning, the last meal may be porridge.
The soup is not to be of strong stock.
It should be only the thin of such an ordi nary soup or broth as commonly forms a part of a mid-day nursery dinner. For instance,
every thrifty housewife knows how pleasant and tasty a soup can be made from the carcase of a fowl, the meat of which has been mainly consumed, with the addition of rice and parsley. Well, the thin of such a soup, not strained, not skimmed of fat, but simply lifted with a ladle, with bread crumb mashed up in it, makes an excellent meal for the one-year-old baby ; so also does the thin of an ordinary Scotch broth with bread.
How often has one, investigating the cause of some childish ailment, hunting for the reason for some troublesome skin eruption, and enquiring into the diet given to an infant, to listen to the tale—the silly tale—about the pound or two of veal and beef, or the plump tender fowl "boiled down to rags," to yield the single cupful of soup, clarified and skimmed and strained, and so strong that when cold, it could be "cut with a knife"( How impos sible to get the mother or nurse, who is so ignorant as to be capable of such foolish waste, to understand that such a cupful is not only of practically no food value, but is actually a species of poison! That this is an accurate way of putting it, any intelligent person will understand by reading what is said of foods in the second volume of this work.
Now the diet noted above is quite suitable for several months, with only a little variety or in crease in the 1-p.m. meal. If, as suggested, the thin of an ordinary broth or soup has been used, which will, of course, contain less or more rice or barley and other vegetables, then gradually more and more of the rice and other vegetables will be lifted with the thin for the infant, until, at about fifteen or from that to eighteen months, the whole broth or soup with the vegetables is being given, with certain exceptions only. The exceptions are that whole peas would not be given, nor carrot, turnip, or potato in pieces. Pieces of turnip or potato need not be removed ; they need only to be broken down to pulp with the spoon, but pieces of carrot should be rejected. Care must be taken that all the vegetables are finely chopped and thoroughly cooked.