ents usually occur at
night, when the mother or the nurse is fast asleep. Never entrust him at
night to a young, giddy, and thoughtless servant. A foolish mother
sometimes goes to sleep while allowing her child to continue sucking.
The unconscious babe, after a time, loses the nipple, and buries his
head in the bed-clothes. She awakes in the morning, finding, to her
horror, a corpse by her side! A mother ought therefore never to go to
sleep until her child has ceased sucking.'

When a couple of months have elapsed, the child, if a healthy one, may
sleep alone. What the child sleeps in is not a matter of great moment,
provided it has a sufficiency of clothing, and be not exposed to
currents of air. A large clothes-basket will serve all the purposes of a
crib. The mistake is often made of burying the child under too heavy a
mass of bed-clothes in a warm room when asleep. And this inconsistency
is committed by the very mothers who scantily clad the child during the
day in order to inure it to the cold. The great transition from its
wrappings by night to those by day is injurious to the health and
comfort of the infant.

'In arranging night coverings, the soft feather-bed is very often
estimated as nothing; or, in other words, the same provision of blankets
is considered indispensable, whether we lie upon a hard mattress or
immersed in down. The mother, looking only to the covering laid over the
child, forgets those on which it lies, although in reality the latter
may be the warmer of the two. An infant deposited in a downy bed has at
least two-thirds of its body in contact with the feathers, and may thus
be perspiring at every pore, when, from its having only a single
covering thrown over it, the mother may imagine it to be enjoying the
restorative influence of agreeable slumber. In hot weather much mischief
might be done by an oversight of this kind.'

It is of course essential to the health and comfort of the infant that
its bed and bed-clothing be kept perfectly dry and sweet. They should
frequently be taken out and exposed to the air.

A child should be accustomed early to sleep in a darkened room. Plutarch
praises the women of Sparta for, among other things, teaching their
children not to be afraid in the dark. He says they 'were so careful and
expert, that without swaddling-bands their children were all straight
and well proportioned; and they brought them up not to be afraid in the
dark or of being alone, and ne