Weaning takes place naturally at the age of eight to ten months. If the mother is not strong it is advisable to wean the child early. Weaning should never be done suddenly, but should be extended over a period of four, six, or even eight weeks. A baby should be taught early in life to suck water daily from a bottle, this will save much trouble when the weaning process is commenced. At first the bottle-food is to be given but once a day in place of the breast, a little later twice a day, and so on until the breast milk is entirely replaced.

The food between the ages of nine and twelve months is essentially sterilized milk, at about the age of one year whole wheat bread (preferably stale) and milk, or milk with crushed zweiback or browned rice and cream, corn flour or oatmeal gruel made thin, to which sterilized milk or cream may be added, are all ideal baby foods. Fruit juices and sterilized water are also included in the list.

The mastication period should begin early in the life of the infant, and must be inculcated by giving it hard and dry foods to chew. The sooner the child is off sloppy foods the better. This will allow the division of food into fluids and solids as in adult use, so that fruit juices and water may be given as drink separate from the usual food, without producing digestive disturbances. A child requires few foods. From birth to one year of age milk and water are practically all that is necessary, although it is customary and advisable at about the age of ten months to add starchy foods to the milk in the form of gruels or porridges. These with milk and bread, zweiback, browned rice, malted nuts and nut-milks, usually suffice until two years of age. Raw fresh, or soft poached eggs, beaten up with milk are sometimes given to infants one year old, but this is rather early, besides it must be remembered that eggs are very badly tolerated by some children; for this reason eggs are better omitted as food until about three years of age. A child should never be given meat; broths can always be, under all circumstances, replaced to advantage by nut-milks. Baked potatoes, slightly buttered with nut-butter, also bread and butter, may be given to a child at about a year and a half to two years of age. Between two and three years of age is the foundation period for laying correct dietetic habits in the child. At about three years of age the child's diet approaches that of the adult. At five years of age, or thereabouts, a child may be put on full adult diet.

The essential points in feeding children is never to overfeed them at any one time. Don't feed them too often; give them stale bread or soft zweiback to stimulate the masticatory instinct, and don't forget to give them water to drink. Selected fruits, peaches, pears, grapes, stewed prunes, without sugar, may be given children at about two years of age. Practically milk is the diet of the first year of an infant; bread and milk, including the cereals, for the second year : after this the adult diet more or less modified.

No candies, cakes, or other such articles should be given children. No food whatever allowed between meals, the asking for such by the child is usually a matter of habit. In such cases give the child a glass of water, or fruit juice.

Infant Feeding is a comprehensive subject and cannot be well condensed into a few pages. The foregoing abstract taken from my little work "How's the Baby?", will give a general idea of what to do in Infant Feeding.

It may be remarked there is considerable difference between the activity of the glandular apparatus of the infant and of the adult; this applies also to the ferments, the infant possessing certain milk digestive ferments, which are absent in the adult man. It is for this reason that the adult, in many instances, is unable to take milk without producing acid fermentation, flatulence, or other gastric disturbances.

Milk, both in the adult as well as in the infant, can be tolerated, where it does not usually agree with one, by taking it plain and hot, nothing else to be taken with it, not even biscuit or bread, the first thing in the morning, an hour before the usual breakfast. The milk should be hot but not boiled; one or two tablespoonsful of lime water may be added to it. The secret of the assimilation of milk by the adult being that it must be taken without admixture of any kind, other than water. In this way the living cells are absorbed by the stomach, and the digestion of the milk is much more rapid and thorough than in any other way.