Little Neurotics, Awake!

Is your baby neurotic? Does he cry at night, suck his thumb, bang his head against the crib, wet the bed, talk or walk in his sleep? If so, he may be getting too much sleep. This conclusion has been forced on British Child Psychiatrist J. A. McCluskie, long a student of dissatisfied babies.

For a one-year-old, wrote Dr. McCluskie in the medical journal Lancet, twelve hours at night and a 2 1/2-hour morning nap is sleep enough. A three-year-old needs only twelve hours, including nap; a five-year-old, eleven hours; an eleven-year-old, ten hours. A half-hour variation from this schedule, warned the doctor, may induce masturbation, surreptitious reading in bed, restlessness and inability to concentrate in school.

Said he: "A healthy child of [three] wakens with the dynamic force of an animal and the vocal exuberance of a bird. Many children are treated with the most appalling dictatorial tyranny by their parents because of this. . . . The child lies in his bed meek, cowed and completely inhibited. . . ."

Cried an indignant mother in the next issue of the Lancet: "I should also like to know how Dr. McCluskie deals with the infant who . . . when propped up in a pram . . . and enjoined to stay awake . . . proceeds to fall asleep in the most uncomfortable position possible, in spite of having slept 14 hours the previous night and three hours that same morning."

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