You have just to watch a baby feeding or crying to confirm these facts, In fact it can be said that the baby sometimes seems to cry just for the exercise the act involves. If therefore the baby seems to be crying naturally without any real cause of discomfort, you should not be in a hurry to stop its crying.

Every tendency and activity of a child is natural and instinctive and rather than trying to stop such activity without thinking, it would be advisable to direct or modify such activity after careful consideration.

Our knowledge of the general principles and other information regarding the methods and manner of bringing up a child cannot be applied indiscriminately and uniformly to all children. For instance, a child that is normal in its health and in other ways may not cry, or may do so very infreque

ntly. In such a case if the mother tries by various means to make it cry in the belief that ‘crying strengthens the lungs’ she would in fact be harming the child.

In babies case, play and exercise cannot really be distinguished. Play exercises a variety of muscles, and the baby may enjoy exercising its muscles. In point of fact every kind of activity in playing involves movement of the muscles of the arms, lags and other parts of the body. Hence for a child even a play is actually a form of exercise.
As the child grows and develops, there is a gradual accumulation of energy in the body of the child. When the energy accumulates in abundance it demands an outlet and the child naturally turns to play. As the child-psychologists believe play is the catharsis of the surplus energies of the child.

In child’s growth judicious blend of sleep, play and exercise makes as great a contributions proper nutrition arid other facts may do. It was not for nothing that shakespeare said: “Sleep is the chief nourisher for the life’s feast.” Lack of sleep, play or exercise can ruin all the ideal dietary effects on the child’s body no matter what you feed him. These four vital factors: proper food, adequate sleep, exercise and play make a lot of difference in the children’s health as their body is more receptive and rather untrained.

While paying attention to these vital factors the natural query that springs is as to how to determine what is needed for the growing child. That brings in focus the various stages of development.