After the infant is weaned, during the second year of its life, great care must be taken in the warm months. The basis of the diet of a child until it reaches its fourth year should be well-cooked cereals, fruits, milk and eggs. Milk may be taken alone or mixed with cereals. Fruits must always be given alone, and eggs, lightly cooked, either poached, coddled or shirred may be served with a crust of bread. The bottle may be continued for a while, using barley water and milk, oatmeal gruel, strained, with milk, or any of the milk gruels. Do not add sugar. Three meals a day should be given, with a feeding between the morning and noon, and the noon and night meal. Dispense with the bottle as early as possible; it saves trouble. Carefully-made milk toast, with hard-boiled yolk of egg grated over, is attractive, palatable and wholesome. Cereal jellies, with milk and cream, make an exceedingly nice supper. The first meal in the morning should be milk, one-third barley water. In the middle of the morning give orange juice, a very mellow ripe peach, an apple carefully baked without sugar, or a cereal with milk. At the noonday meal, which should be the heavy meal, the child may have a bowl of mutton broth with rice; or, far better, give cream of celery soup, or peas, or lentils, or ground nuts, with stale-bread crumbs. Another day give the yolk of egg and bread crumbs. Another day, milk toast and the yolk of egg. The next between-meal feeding should be milk and barley water.

The last meal at night before going to bed should be milk, from six to eight ounces, slightly warmed. Induce the child to take this from a glass or cup, rather than the bottle. To give variety change the method of cooking, but do not get very far away from eggs, milk, cereals and fruits. One day for the noonday meal give a baked potato mashed with cream, very slightly salted, or a bowl of junket, or a cup custard, warm, not hot. If the child is to be brought up a meat eater, it may have a little very finely-chopped white meat of chicken, or a scraped beef or mutton cake.

At the end of the second year give a little carefully-cooked spinach, stewed celery, stewed cucumber, stewed summer squash, not mashed; well-boiled rice, rice puddings, fruit gelose, soft custard with bread crumbs, and the upper half of a shredded wheat biscuit with warm milk.

At the beginning of the third year the diet may be slightly increased in quantity, but do not add too great a variety. Cream may be used on such cereals as Cream of Wheat and farina. Wheatena and Wheatlet should be served with milk. Ice cream, lightly flavored, may be allowed once a week. Oranges, ripe peaches, baked bananas, stewed prunes, carefully-scalded dates, and large grapes, skinned and seeded, may be added. Small fruits should be mashed and strained.

When the child has reached its fourth year add delicately-cooked green vegetables in greater variety than heretofore. Very young lima beans, pressed through a sieve, tender hearts of lettuce with a little olive oil and a few drops of lemon juice, very young sweet peas. Whole wheat bread should be used in the place of white bread. Tea, coffee and chocolate should never be given, nor should jelly and jam be used on bread in place of butter. During the warm months use the lighter cereals, as farina, Cream of Wheat, barley flour mush, rice and rice pudding. For the winter breakfasts, oatmeal, rye mush, cornmeal mush and Wheatlet.

When the child is learning to eat, devote considerable time to teaching it the art of mastication. In this way the jaws are developed, the teeth strengthened and the stomach kept in good condition. Children who live on soft foods and swallow them without mastication, have frequently undeveloped jaws, too small to hold the teeth, which are apt to come in crowded and decay almost as soon as they are through the gums. A child should be taught to keep its mouth perfectly clean. Conditions arising from decayed teeth frequently cause serious digestive disturbances.

Whether you feed your children on meat or not must be settled by the habits of the family. If meat is given, it should not be used more than four times a week. Lean scraped beef, broiled, mutton or lamb, white meat of chicken and an occasional piece of white-fleshed fish, only should be used. Pork, veal, goose, fat fowl, the internal organs of animals, as sweetbreads, brains and liver, should be strictly avoided. Meat substitutes are puree of old peas, beans, lentils, eggs, milk and nut dishes. Balance the meals if possible; for instance, at one meal give a puree of lentils, followed by a baked potato and a carefully-cooked green vegetable, or an egg with whole wheat bread, followed by a saucer of stewed prunes, or a baked potato, mashed with cream, and carefully-stewed spinach, followed by a cup custard. A cream soup with stale bread crumbs may be followed by a warm cup custard. A puree of lentils may be followed by boiled rice, carefully-cooked fresh peas and a fruit tapioca or a mock charlotte. Do not give eggs and milk and meat at the same meal. Children enjoy pleasant combinations.