BABY’S FIRST STEPS.

Patea Mail, 21 February 1882, Page 3

BABY’S FIRST STEPS.

Under the above heading, Cassell’s Family Magazine gives some useful hints to mothers and nurses, from which we extract the following :—“ Exercise is the last but not least important portion of my subject to be treated. I suppose my first duty is to say a word or two about teaching children to walk. It may be said that all mothers know how to manage this perhaps, but they are often guilty of great errors notwithstanding. Nature in this respect will not be forced. A young child’s bones are soft and cartilagenous, and keeping a poor little thing tied up against a chair when it ought to be lying on its back kicking the air and strengthening its limbs, or crawling on the nursery floor, is positively injurious and sinful. It is done, I know, with the view of teaching it all the sooner to maintain the erect attitude; but bent-legged may be the result, and however strong a bent-legged man may be, he certainly does not look elegant. Let the children creep, then, and as soon as he finds that he can pull himself cautiously up, and stand by the side of a box, he will do so: this is the only safe and natural process. Soon after this he will, if encouraged, venture upon what parents call the first step. Let him creep and when he walks and falls, laugh at him ; unless you want to make the child an idiot, do not rush to pull him up. Children are not at all brittle, and they ought to learn at a very early age to depend upon the strength nature has endowed them with. Some nurses tie a band aronnd the child’s waist and then shove them kicking and sprawling on before them, during which time the child looks as graceful as the golden lamb which hosiers hang out as a sign. The practice is most injurious.”