Diaper

“ A thin shirt, band, diaper and cotton slip will usually be enough for out-of-door wear, while in the house he may often dispense with the slip and sometimes with everything but his diaper.
During excessively hot days, the baby should have two or three cool sponge baths, in addition to the soap and water bath, one of the sponges being given before he is put to bed for the night. He should sleep on a firm mattress, preferably curled hair but never feathers, and in the coolest, best ventilated room available. ”

“ The variations in the time of the urinations were only fifteen or twenty minutes, so nearly did the kidneys act at the same time each day. The caretaker was instructed to remove the diaper and hold the baby out at the earliest occurrence on the daily schedule, and, to the astonishment of the entire family, no further accidents occurred, and the child soon acquired the habit of letting them understand when he was about to wet his diaper. Bowel movements may be regulated more easily than the urination. After the child is about a year old, very few accidents should occur. ”

“ No material which prevents the escape of perspiration, urine or fecal matter should be employed for a diaper. The use of a chair-commode as early as the end of the first year is highly to be commended, as being more comfortable for the sex organs and healthier for the child. ”

“ Nothing is more trying, in a small way, than to get a diaper that cannot be folded true. These should be made double and the edges turned in and sewed around. By the time the baby has outgrown them they will be fit only for the rag- bag, and may be thrown aside. The second size diaper, also the third should be many times washed to make them soft enough for use. These may be used at first folded eight times and put under the baby next the damask diaper, between that and the pinning blanket, and will often save the nurse the trouble of changing the baby's clothing, because it is wet through. ”

“ Habits of cleanliness can be taught every child. The clumsy diaper can be dispensed with by the time it is three or four months old. Let the mother practice holding out her baby immediately after nursing it, and it will easily be taught to urinate at this time, and also to have a passage from the bowels at a stated time in the morning and evening. The actual comfort secured to mother and child through this habit, more than repays for the labor and patience in securing it. Teach your children to be cleanly. A dirty child is a mother’s disgrace. ”

“ Unnoticed by nurse or mother, the inflammation of the anus and rectum makes headway with each subsequent soiling; and thereafter, when the use of the diaper is dispensed with, inattention to the normal action of the bowels, improper food, the resort to purgatives, stimulants, and opiates, play no small part in aggravating the existing malady. ”

“ In draperies, backgrounds, and so on, this is most effectively done in the form of a diaper, often as minute as damascening, which scarcely counts much as pattern. Bold or delicate, a diaper is quite the most effective means of lowering colour; even hard lines seldom appear hard in glass, owing to the spreading of the light as it comes through ”

“ In the 13th century also comes into vogue the highly decorated diaper-work, generally of lozenges or chequered patterns in brilliant colours and brightly burnished gold. These fill the backgrounds of miniatures and initials, together with other forms of decoration, such as sheets of gold stippled or surface-drawn in various designs. Diapering continued to be practised in all three countries down into the 15th century ”

“ Diapers should be made of soft absorbent material such as well-washed linen and should be about two yards square and folded in a three-cornered shape. An infant should always sleep in a bed or cot by itself. ”

“ If tight bands are an injury to grown people, then in the name of pity emancipate the poor little infant from their torture!
7. The Diaper.—Diapers should be of soft linen, and great care should be exercised not to pin them too tightly. Never dry them, but always wash them thoroughly before being used again.
8. The band need not be worn after the navel has healed so that it requires no dressing, as it serves no purpose save to keep in place the dressing of the navel. The child's body should be kept thoroughly warm around the chest, bowels and feet. ”

“ The diapering of armorial emblazonments is a matter with which the Science of armory has no concern. Diaper never forms any part of the blazon, and is never officially noticed, being considered, and very properly allowed to remain, a purely artistic detail. From the artistic point of view it has some importance, as in many of the earliest instances of handicraft in which armorial decoration appears, very elaborate diapering is introduced. ”

“ Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth having, is the result of toil. ”

“ Turning him or moving him about even to the extent of changing his diaper at this time may cause vomiting.
The evidences of satisfactory and unsatisfactory feeding in the bottle-fed baby are about the same as in the baby who is fed at the breast, except that the gain in weight on artificial food may be a little slower and less steady than on maternal nursing; the stools have a characteristic sour odor; are a little lighter in color and may contain white lumps of undigested fat; are usually dryer than in breast feeding and may be formed, in even a very young baby. ”

“ Diapers frequently chafe, irritate, and gall the tender skin of a baby. But they cannot, of course, at an early age be dispensed with, unless a mother has great judgment, sense, tact, and perseverance, to bring her little charge into the habit of having the bowels relieved and the bladder emptied every time he is either held out or put upon his chair. ”

“ In the first place, the men go entirely naked, with the exception of a cloth they wear, something like that of an American baby’s diaper. The women wear about four yards of cloth thrown carelessly around them, covering the lower extremities, and tied by the ends about the waist. ”

“ The urine of the very young child should be clear, free from odor and should not stain the diaper, nor should it irritate the skin of the babe. Often urination does not take place for several hours, sometimes not at all during the first twenty-four hours. If the infant does not show signs of distress, there is110 no cause for alarm ”

“ In stained glass and enamel work, where the use of diaper is most frequently met with, it was introduced for the express purpose of catching and breaking up the light, the result of which was to give an enormously increased effect of brilliance to the large and otherwise flat surfaces. ”

“ Babies cannot sleep peacefully in a hot, stuffy room, or in a room filled with the fumes of an oil lamp turned low. A crying fretful baby often quiets down as if by magic, providing he is not hungry and the diaper is dry, when taken into a cool room with fresh air. After the first two months the temperature of the sleeping room should be fairly cool and fresh.
2. Clothes and Bedding. The night clothes may be irritating and causing perspiration, while the bedding may be wrapped too snugly about the child. If baby's neck is warm and moist, you may know that he is too warm. ”

“ Without e'er a wife?
[page 309]
DCXXXII.
I can weave diaper thick, thick, thick,
And I can weave diaper thin,
I can weave diaper out of doors
And I can weave diaper in.
DCXXXIII. [The following is quoted in the song of Mad Tom. See my introduction to Shakespeare's Mids. Night's Dream, p. 55.] ”

“ This massage is 217often given for about ten minutes every day, preferably at night, but never just after feeding.
Fig. 64.—Giving the baby an enema. He is well protected, to prevent chilling, and lies comfortably on a pillow which reaches to the bed-pan, the latter being covered with a diaper where he rests upon it.
Constipation is sometimes entirely cured by nothing more than a suitable dietary; an abundance of drinking water; an out-of-door life; massage, and above all, the unceasing effort to establish a regular habit. These are all things which you, yourself, may do for the baby. ”

“ Fresh powder should be put on every time the diaper is removed, every time the infant urinates, and at other times during the day. The cord should be kept absolutely dry. Putting on powder twice daily will not keep the cord dry and many nurses are too lazy to bother to do it oftener. You cannot make a mistake in putting on too much powder, you can make a serious mistake by not putting on enough. Every time the cord is powdered it should be lifted up, away from the skin of the abdomen, and the powder put below it. ”

“ The frequency with which diapering is met with in armorial handicraft is strangely at variance with its absence in heraldic paintings of the same periods, a point which may perhaps be urged upon the attention of some of the heraldic artists of the present day, who would rather seem to have failed to grasp the true purpose and origin and perhaps also the use of diaper. ”

“ Fine diaper generally, but sometimes dimity and muslin are employed, or the table is covered with a kind of Marseilles quilting, which is prepared expressly for the purpose. Sometimes the covers are merely hemmed round, but they look much neater if fringed, or bordered with a moderately full frill. Sometimes a worked border is set on. All depends upon taste and fancy. ”

“ At your side, on the floor, have a small blanket ready to lay over the rubber apron when needed. Put your baby basket where you can reach it, be sure that it contains all the things you will need—sponge, soap, powder, pins, vaseline, etc., and an extra diaper or two. Now get the tub (tin) and pour in the water until it is about four inches deep. Have the water no warmer than 100 degrees F. Bath thermometers are made that are quite cheap, and a great convenience; one should always be at hand, as no nurse should ever trust her feelings as to whether the water is hot enough or not. ”

“ Many mothers think that the daily bath is sufficient to provide for cleanliness in a child. This is a mistake. From the very start a child should learn that to be clean is to be comfortable. Particularly if the mother is careless about changing the diapers and the bedding, the baby will actually become accustomed to the discomfort which follows and will not resent it. If the diapers are changed immediately they are wet, the baby will cry bitterly when he is neglected and allowed to lie in a wet diaper or other clothing. ”

“ In this piece the diaper decoration, in green and yellow, which distinguishes early Ming and Kang-he, is again prominent. These diapers are largely used in borders too. Many of them can be traced in our illustrations, such as the key pattern, the T, the swastika, Joo-e-head, trellis, triangle, herring-bone, honeycomb, ring, diamond, as here, plain, sometimes it is flowered; lozenge, coin, scroll, fish-roe, octagons and squares, net-work, petal-work, speckled-work to imitate fish-skin, scale, curl, Y-work. They should be studied. ”

“ The woman who finds herself pregnant works until the very last moment before the child is born, and resumes her tasks immediately afterward, as soon as the baby is attended to. They leave their children so much to themselves, and give them so little care, that they are forever creeping around on the floor in all the mire and dirt, and always completely naked. A diaper and a tiny hipil are all they get for the first few days of their life. Around wrists and ankles they occasionally will tie tiny cords made of blue cotton to protect them, so they say, from epilepsy. ”

“ If the indigestion is due to overfeeding, the child shows an abnormal gain in weight, is restless after nursing, vomits, suffers from wind and colic, is dull and sleeps a great deal but restlessly, not quietly, perspires heavily on head and neck, and passes so much urine that, despite frequent changing, the diapers are always wet. ”

“ If she places a pad underneath the baby, which will absorb the urine quickly, he often does not awaken or become chilled. The pad should be sufficiently thick to ensure that the nightgown does not get wet.
RUBBER DIAPERS
Rubber sheeting diapers of any description should never be used. Avoid all patent diapers with a covering or an inner lining of rubber, for, like the rubber diaper, they not only irritate the child but also retain moisture and heat, which produce such irritation and itching that the subsequent "habit-scratching" often lays the foundation for future bad practices. ”

“ Dia-penidion, sb. a kind of sweet stuff like barley-sugar used to relieve coughs, PP; diapenydion, PP; diopendion, S2.—OF. diapenidion, It. diapenídio, cp. diapiéde, ‘a diapedon or confection made of Penids’ (Florio) . See Dia and Penid.
Diaper, sb. a kind of figured cloth; dyaper, MD; diapery, MD.—OF. diaspre, diaspe, diapered cloth; Lat. iaspidem, jasper; from Gr. ἴασπις, probably of Semitic origin; see Diez, p. 119.
Diaper, v. to variegate, adorn with figures and colours, ND; diapred, pp., ND; dyapred, C.
Diath, sb. death, S; see Deeþ.
Dicht, pp. prepared, S2; see Dihten. ”

“ To a fully developed child the first bath may be given at once. Have everything ready before beginning, a foot tub, warm soft towels, warm water, castile soap, olive oil or vaselin, small squares of muslin or linen, dusting powder, a dressing for the navel and clothing, the latter consisting of a diaper, a flannel band, a shirt, long woolen stockings, a loose long sleeved flannel petticoat and a simple soft white outside garment, the two last, long enough to more than cover the feet. ”