Breastfeeding and weaning regimen

Regarding the circumstances of breastfeeding and other nutrition, the following must be said: whenever possible, one should feed with mother’s milk, because as food it is more similar to the substance of the food that the child received in the form of menstrual blood while still in the mother’s womb. It is this blood that turns into milk, and therefore the child accepts it more easily and gets used to it faster. Practice has established that when sucking the mother's nipple, the child receives great benefits in preventing various suffering. You should limit yourself to feeding two or three times a day, and at first you don’t need to feed a lot. In addition, it is desirable that someone other than the mother feeds first, until the mother’s nature is balanced. Before feeding, it’s good to let your baby lick some honey.

In the morning, before feeding the baby, you need to pull the nipple two or three times to extract some milk, especially if the milk has flaws, and then apply it to the breast. If the milk is of poor quality and bitter, then it is best for the nurse not to feed the child without eating first.

Among the useful means necessary for infants to strengthen their nature are: firstly, gentle rocking and secondly, music and a song, usually sung when lulling to sleep. The degree to which a child perceives these two things predisposes him to physical exercise and music. The first refers to the body, and the second to the soul.

If there is any obstacle to feeding the child with mother's milk due to the mother's weakness or spoilage or wateriness of the milk, then it is necessary to choose a nurse who meets the requirements described below in terms of age, appearance, nature, breast shape, quality of milk, time, elapsed from the moment of birth until the moment of feeding someone else’s child, and by the gender of her child.

When such a nurse is found, you need to improve her food by giving her dishes made from wheat, spelt, lamb, kid and fish that do not have smelly and tough meat; lettuce, almonds and hazelnuts are also praiseworthy foods. Among the vegetables that are bad for the nurse are indau, mustard and garden basil, because they spoil the milk; Common mint also has the same effect.

As for the requirements for a wet nurse, let's start with the requirement for her age; we say that the best age is between and years. This is considered youth and the age of health and perfection.

As for the appearance and physique of the nurse, she should have a pleasant skin color, a strong neck, a strong and broad chest, developed elastic muscles, and should not be too fat and not too thin.

The nurse must have a good and kind character, that is, she should not quickly succumb to such bad mental reactions as anger, sadness, fear and the like, because all this spoils nature and often affects feeding. For this reason, the Messenger of God, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade the hiring of possessed women as nurses. In addition, the bad character of the nurse causes poor care for babies and reduces the care of the nurse.

As for the shape of the breasts, they should be firm and large, but not saggy; however, they should not be outrageously large and should be neither soft nor hard.

The nurse's milk should be of moderate thickness and secreted in moderate quantities, its color should be white and not change, but not greenish, yellowish, or reddish; it should have a pleasant, not a bad smell; its taste should be sweet, neither bitter, nor salty or sour.

Its particles must be homogeneous, then it is not liquid, does not spread, and at the same time it is not very thick, like pickled. The particles of such milk are not heterogeneous, and it does not form much foam.

The quality of milk is tested by dripping it onto the nail: if it spreads, then it is liquid, but if it does not spread on the nail, then it is thick. It is also tested in a glass bowl: adding a little myrrh to the milk, stirring with your finger, as a result the amount of curdled part and separated liquid is determined. In good milk, the curdled part and the liquid part are equal.

If, against your will, you have to use a wet nurse whose milk does not have the described qualities, then proceed as follows: give the child this milk and at the same time treat the wet nurse.

As for artificial feeding, if the milk is thick and foul-smelling, it is best to give it to the child after keeping it in the air, but if the milk is too warm, then, of course, you should not give it to the child on an empty stomach.

As for the treatment of the nurse, if her milk is thick, you need to give her sikanjubin al-buzuri', boiled with such thinning agents as pulegian mint, hyssop, thyme and mountain cdmap', she is given citron and the like; You need to add a little radish to her food. It is recommended to induce vomiting in the nurse by drinking hot sikanjubin. She is also advised to exercise moderately. If she has a hot nature, then she should drink shikanjubin together with liquid wine or separately.

If her milk is thin, then it is not recommended for her to engage in physical exercise, and she should be given food that forms thick blood. Sometimes she is given sweet wine or grape molasses, if there is no obstacle; Long sleep is also recommended.

If she has little milk, then you need to find out the reason for this. The reason may be the bad hot nature of the whole body or just the breasts, which can be determined by the signs outlined in the previous chapters. If, when feeling the breasts, one notices the presence of heat in them, then one should give her barley broth, spinach, and the like. If you feel signs of coldness in nature, or the presence of a blockage, or weakness of the attractive force, then you need to add light things with a hotter property to her food. You also need to carefully place the jars under your breasts. In this case, carrot seeds are useful, and carrots themselves are very useful. If the reason for the lack of milk is a small intake of food, then you need to feed her with soup made from barley, bran and various cereals. Beef lard with pure wine is also beneficial. It is necessary to add the root and seeds of fennel, dill and nigella sativa to her soup and food in general.

They say that in this case it is very useful to eat sheep or goat udder along with the milk in it. It is useful due to its resemblance to women's breasts or its quality. Experience has established that if for several days in a row the nurse is given barley water to drink with the addition of one dirham of wood borer larvae or dried earthworms, this is of great benefit, as well as broth from salted fish heads, seasoned with dill juice.

The means that increase the amount of milk also include the following: add a little pure wine to one ukiyya of beef lard and give it to drink, or take ground sesame seeds, mix with wine, strain and give to drink, or apply a medicinal bandage from the infusion of spikenard to the nurse’s breasts. olive oil and donkey milk, or take one uqiya of boiled eggplant pulp, and, having soaked it in wine, give it to the nurse, or boil bran with radish in wine and give it to drink, or take three uqiya of dill seeds and one uqiya of fenugreek seeds. blue, leek seeds and two ukiya seeds of alfalfa and fenugreek, all this is mixed with squeezed fennel juice, honey and lard and given to drink.

If the nurse produces so much milk that it causes her anxiety and it spoils due to a large tide and thickening in the breasts, then its quantity is reduced

by reducing the nurse's food or giving her less nutritious food. A bandage of a mixture of cumin and vinegar, or a mixture of pure clay and vinegar, or lentils boiled in vinegar is also applied to the chest and body; then she is given salt water to drink.

Eating copious amounts of mint or applying it to the breasts increases milk production.

If the milk smells unpleasant, the nurse is treated with pleasant-smelling wine and is also fed good food with a pleasant smell.

As for the requirement for the period expiring from the birth of the wet nurse, it is necessary that her release from the burden should not be too close, that is, one and a half to two months. It is also necessary that her child be a boy and that she carry it during its natural period, that is, that she does not have a premature birth or is not in the habit of miscarrying.

The nurse is advised to exercise moderately and eat food that produces good chyme. Under no circumstances should you have sexual intercourse with her, because this sets the menstrual blood in motion, which spoils the smell of the milk and reduces its quantity. She might even get pregnant, which would be very harmful for both children. The infant will suffer from the best part of the milk being used up to nourish the fetus, and the fetus will suffer from a decrease in nutrition caused by the infant's need for milk.

At each feeding, especially at the first feeding, it is necessary to strain out a little milk and, lightly massaging the breast, help the baby so that increased sucking does not cause harm to his throat and esophagus. This makes sucking easier.

It is useful to give the child a spoonful of honey before each feeding; it would be nice to mix a little wine with the honey. There is no need to feed too much at one time, but it is best to feed little by little and repeatedly. If you immediately feed a child to full, this often leads to stupor, bloating, wind accumulation and makes the urine colorless. If all this happens to a child, then he does not need to be fed and should be forced to starve fairly and put to bed until he is completely digested.

In the first days you need to feed at most three times a day. As we mentioned above, if it is not the mother who feeds the baby on the first day, then this is better. When a nurse’s nature deteriorates, or a painful illness appears, or severe diarrhea, or troublesome constipation, it is better to entrust feeding to another woman until the nurse recovers. The same must be done if the nurse is forced to take various strong medications.

If the baby sleeps after feeding, then you should not rock the cradle too much, because this will agitate the milk in his stomach, but you should move the cradle quietly. A little crying before feeding is helpful.

The natural feeding period is two years. If the child develops an appetite for something other than milk, then it should be given gradually and not forced.

When the front teeth appear, you need to gradually move on to the most dense foods, excluding things that are hard to chew. You need to start with bread chewed by the nurse. Then they give bread with water and honey, or wine, or milk, while giving them a little more water to drink; Sometimes a little wine is added to the water.

Under no circumstances should you feed to satiety. If he becomes oversaturated, his abdomen becomes bloated and his urine turns white, then he should not be given anything. It is best to feed your baby after lubricating his body and bathing him.

Later, when the child is weaned, they move on to something like stew and easily digestible meat.

It is necessary that weaning occur gradually, and not suddenly, all at once. At the same time, the child is occupied with food made in the form of acorns from bread and sugar. If the child persistently demands the breast, asks to be fed and cries, then you need to lubricate the nipple of the breast with a ground mixture of myrrh and pulegium mint, taken one dirham each.

In conclusion, we will say:  caring for a child consists of hydrating him, for his nature is similar to moisture and needs it for nutrition, growth and moderate but frequent movement. This is natural for him, and nature itself requires it, especially when he moves from childhood to adolescence.

When the child begins to stand on his feet and move around, he must be protected from violent movements. He should not be allowed to walk or sit until he wants to, because this could damage his legs and spine.

When a child begins to sit and crawl on the ground, it is necessary to sit him on a soft and smooth place so that the roughness of the ground does not scratch him; At the same time, chips, knives and similar piercing and cutting objects are removed from there. It is necessary to protect it from sliding from a high place.

When the fangs begin to erupt, you need to discourage your child from eating hard things to chew so that the result is
Even after intensive chewing, the substance that forms the fangs did not disappear. At this time, you need to lubricate his gums with rabbit brain and internal chicken fat to facilitate teething. If the gums prevent cutting, then you need to lubricate the child's head and neck with olive oil, washed by shaking with hot water. You should also drip this olive oil into your ears.

When the teeth grow to such an extent that they make it possible to bite, the child puts his fingers into them and bites them. In this case, you need to give him a piece of not too dry licorice root or its condensed juice, because in this case it is very useful.

Licorice root is also useful for various ulcers and pain in the gums. It is also necessary to rub his mouth with salt and honey to prevent pain. Then, when the growth of teeth increases, you need to give the child pieces of candy made from licorice juice or a piece of its not too dry root, which he should keep in his mouth.

When a child's teeth grow, it is very appropriate to lubricate his neck with sweet olive oil or sweet oil in general. When he begins to speak, you need to constantly lubricate the base of his tongue.