Part 21

Three months’ child may take 5 ounces at one feeding.

Six months’ child may take 7 ounces at one feeding.

Nine months’ child may take 9 ounces at one feeding.

The child should consume the contents of a bottle in twenty minutes.

Orange juice is not a necessary food unless milk is pasteurized or sterilized (boiled) and in case of constipation. Give 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls one hour before feeding. After nine months reduce amount of milk and increase amount of carbohydrates, such as starch gruels, flour ball, barley flour, oatmeal, and vegetable soup. Zwieback or dry toast may be placed in infant’s hand to teach it how to feed itself. Milk allowed in second year, 1 quart in twenty-four hours. Fruit juices may now be given and should form a part of the food after fifteen months of age. Vegetables, such as beets, spinach and carrots chopped fine and squeezed through colander, may be a part of the regular diet in four meals a day. A child two years old may have small quantities of fresh fish, tender chicken, or beefsteak. No green fruits should be given under four years of age. Eggs should be soft-boiled for two minutes or coddled four minutes, and then only one a day if it agrees with the child.

RULES FOR STERILIZING BOTTLES.

Boil bottles and nipples in 2 per cent. soda solution for five minutes, then in clear water for five minutes. Keep empty bottles and nipples not in use in sterile water or weak boric solution. Plug with raw cotton.

TO PASTEURIZE MILK.

1. Place bottles in vessel of warm water. Heat to 147° F. Keep at that temperature thirty minutes. Take vessel off stove and cover with a heavy blanket. Then pour off hot water and fill vessel with cold water to cool the milk quickly.

2. Put milk in double boiler and raise to a temperature of 150° to 155° F. Let stand at this temperature for twenty to thirty minutes.

Pasteurizing milk does not kill the ferments in the milk, but it kills almost all bacteria except the spore-bearing bacteria, of which the gas bacillus is the most important.

TO STERILIZE MILK.

Boil milk for five minutes and then prepare as for pasteurizing, keeping it at temperature of 147° F. for thirty minutes and cooling it by the same process as given for pasteurization.

Boiling milk kills all bacteria. It is said that heating of milk to this degree impairs its nutritive value.

Note.—Spores develop quickly in lukewarm milk, therefore the necessity of cooling it quickly and placing it in refrigerator.

MODIFIED MILK.

Add water or other substances to cow’s milk to change it to agree with the digestion of the infant. Malted foods when mixed with water are deficient, and by adding milk or cream it becomes modified milk.

All mixtures should be cold when adding milk, and water sterilized when used as a diluent.

Note.—The natural food for the infant is human milk. The breast-fed babies are healthier, more vigorous, and more resistant to disease. (See Rickets and Scurvy.)

SUGARS.

Lactose or milk-sugar is best for normal babies. It may split up in the intestines into acids and when it ferments is likely to be a laxative. Sucrose (cane-sugar) has no advantage over lactose, except that it is cheaper. Do not give sucrose if other sugars are on hand.

Maltose (malt-sugar) is expensive and is never given pure.

Dissolve all sugars in warm sterilized water. Malt extract is more laxative than other milk-sugar preparations. Malt extract should be brought to boiling-point only.

PROPRIETARY FOODS.

Condensed and evaporated milks.

Malted foods, containing starch.

Starchy foods and various dry powders.

Kindolac, a dried milk.