The meals should be four in number, and one nap a day, usually in the afternoon, will suffice in most cases after the fourth year. There is to be no sudden change of diet, but the proportion of milk will gradually be decreased and the mushy cereals will give place to greater and greater proportions of bread stuffs, cookies etc. Butter will be eaten in correspondingly greater quantity, and a little more meat will be eaten. The range of fruits will be extended, desserts need not be so closely restricted and a greater variety of vegetables will be allowed, though the "fodder" vegetables should be allowed only in small quantities and should not be pushed contrary to the child's appetite, as they are never of any great value.

The first permanent molars appear towards the close of this period, while the deciduous incisors begin to decay, so that many children present an opposite condition to that of late infancy, and require preparation of food by fine cutting, scraping etc.

The habit of cleaning the teeth with thread and brush, using borax water with or without good soap, should be formed early in life and dentistry should be called in to assist in the preservation even of the deciduous teeth, by means of soft fillings. Not only are the deciduous teeth valuable in themselves, but the colonization of bacteria of caries in them ultimately tends to early loss of the permanent teeth.