Air and sun baths
To quenching procedures carry not only dousing with cold water, but also air and sun baths, which can be taken almost from the first weeks of life of the baby. Only if he was born prematurely or weakened, the hardening procedures should be carried out in a more gentle mode with a gradual increase in the load.
Strictly speaking, the first air baths the kid receives already when changing, in the future - when he is given a massage. However, doctors recommend to cover not massaged areas of the body with a warm diaper, but in part all the same the process of hardening has already begun. Over time, the child can be stripped completely for the time of massage and gymnastics, and even later, when he gets used to the temperature drops, you can leave the
naked especially for getting air baths. The first air baths of the baby should be organized at an air temperature of at least 22-24 ° C and last only 1-2 minutes. Such baths can be arranged 3 times a day, combined with massage and gymnastics, as well as changing. Over time, the contact time with air can be increased to 4-5 minutes, while gradually lowering its temperature to 18-20 ° C.
Quenching air baths provide the baby with a good tone, as the cool causes tension in the muscles, in which there is increased energy release orheat. Therefore, the cool invigorates and contributes to the movement, and thus the development of children. At the same time, many of them learn new movements before their peers, before they start to sit down, crawl, etc. Skin covers also "respond with gratitude" to the hardening procedures: since air baths increase blood circulation and enrichment with oxygen, they less often react to various allergens, the sebaceous glands work normally, so the skin does not need additional care.
I would like to give you some more tips: if you want your baby to be healthy and less likely to get sick, do not limit yourself to routine tempering procedures, you need to use every opportunity to hold the child at least slightly naked or partially naked,
for example, without sliders or with openbreast. Thus, the thermoregulation of the baby's body will be adjusted much faster.
If there is such an opportunity, you can arrange every dream of a baby in the air, for example, on a balcony or loggia, at an open window. In the warm season, of course, it is easier to do this, because the baby does not need to be worn, in warm weather it will not freeze, but in winter you will have to be more careful while sleeping on the street.
Very often air baths are combined with sun baths, however, for infants of the first year of life, active sun baths are contraindicated. Little children like anyone else for growth and development need vitamin D, which is formed in the body under the influence of sunlight. Although active sunbathing is forbidden for our children, light and air are allowed. What is this bath? Their baby can take in the summer in sunny weather, being in the shade of a tree crown or under a summer umbrella. To the delicate skin of a baby, not direct sunlight, but scattered through tissue or foliage, falls. As a result, staying for a long time outdoors in sunny weather, the child does not overheat and does not burn its delicate skin.
Solar baths can receive and "lucky", whose windows face south. In this case, the mother can open the window, warning the appearance of a draft, and the baby will receive its dose of ultraviolet.
You, of course, know that solar activity is not the same throughout the day, and is especially dangerous during lunch hours. Therefore, doctors recommend taking walks with the child in good sunny weather in the summer from 9 to 11 hours and after 16 hours.
Nevertheless, and to the sunlight of the baby is to accustom gradually. Initially, the duration of sunbathing should not exceed 2 minutes. Each next day, this time can be increased by 1 min, bringing up to 15 minutes, only a year the baby can stay in the sun for no more than 30-40 minutes. Solar baths, like dousing with cold water, need to be carried out gradually, exposing individual parts of the body. For example, in the first sessions you can open only the legs to the toddler, in time, sunlight can be substituted for the tummy, and later - the chest. When mom sees that her baby is ready for full nudity, his skin is accustomed to the sun's rays, then it can be completely denuded. But this applies only to the body, as for the head, it must always be covered with a headdress( cap, kerchief or panama).
I would like to give two more advice to mothers, in which the kids are sunbathing while on the street. It is better to place the child not in a stroller, but on an open surface, for example, on the grass. This way, you can avoid overheating the baby's body, as his body will be flooded with air from all sides.
If the child has a skin that is too tender, then the mother should pay special attention to his condition, since even in the shade, such children can get a sunburn that will manifest only after a few hours.
Speaking about the special sensitivity of the baby's skin to the sun's rays, it is worth recalling that dark-haired dark-skinned children get used to sun rays much quicker than their blond white Caucasian peers.
As for the colder time of the year, Mom needs to use the appearance of the sun and in this season and put the baby carriage to meet the sun's rays, exposing them to the face and hands of the child.
Strengthening the child in such simple ways, parents will be able to significantly improve his immunity. You will be able to see this, paying attention to how often the children suffer, whose mothers have neglected the doctor's advice about hardening.