Baby In A Box
BABY IN A BOX
B.F. Skinner
Ladies Home Journal,<br>October 1945
In that brave new world<br>which science is preparing for the housewife of the future, the young mother has<br>apparently been forgotten. Almost nothing has been done to ease her lot by<br>simplifying and improving the care of babies.
When we decided to have another child, my<br>wife and I felt that it was time to apply a little labor-saving invention and<br>design to the problems of the nursery. We began by going over the<br>disheartening schedule of the young mother, step by step. We asked only<br>one question: Is this practice important for the physical and<br>psychological health of the baby? When it was not, we marked it for<br>elimination. Then the �gadgeteering� began.
The result was an inexpensive apparatus in<br>which our baby daughter has now been living for eleven months. Her<br>remarkable good health and happiness and my wife�s welcome leisure have<br>exceeded our most optimistic predictions, and we are convinced that a new deal<br>for both mother and baby is at hand.
We tackled first the problem of warmth.<br>The usual solution is to wrap the baby in half-a-dozen layers of cloth-shirt,<br>nightdress, sheet, and blankets. This is never completely successful.<br>The baby is likely to be found steaming in its own fluids or lying cold and<br>uncovered. Schemes to prevent uncovering may be dangerous, and in fact<br>they have sometimes even proved fatal. Clothing and bedding also interfere<br>with normal exercise and growth and keep the baby from taking comfortable<br>postures or changing posture during sleep. They also encourage rashes and<br>sores. Nothing can be said for the system on the score of convenience,<br>because frequent changes and launderings are necessary.
Why not, we thought, dispense with<br>clothing altogether-except for the diaper, which serves another purpose-and warm<br>the space in which the baby lives? This should be a simple technical<br>problem in the modern home. Our solution is a closed compartment about as<br>spacious as a standard crib (Figure 1). The walls are well insulated, and<br>one side, which can be raised like a window, is a large pane of safety glass.<br>The heating is electrical, and special precautions have been taken to insure<br>accurate control.
After a little experimentation we found<br>that our baby, when first home from the hospital, was completely comfortable and<br>relaxed without benefit of clothing at about 86�F.<br>As she grew older, it was possible to lower the temperature by easy stages.<br>Now, at eleven months, we are operating at about 78�,<br>with a relative humidity of 50 per cent.
Raising or lowering the temperature by<br>more than a degree or two produces a surprising change in the baby�s condition<br>and behavior. This response is so sensitive that we wonder how a<br>comfortable temperature is ever reached with clothing and blankets.
The discovery, which pleased us most, was<br>that crying and fussing could always be stopped by slightly lowering the<br>temperature. During the first three months, it is true, the baby would<br>also cry when wet or hungry, but in that case she would stop when changed or<br>fed. During the past six months she has not cried at all except for a<br>moment or tow when injured or sharply distressed-for example, when inoculated.<br>The �lung exercise� which so often is appealed to reassure the mother of a<br>baby who cries a good deal takes the much pleasanter form of shouts and gurgles.
How much of this sustained cheerfulness is<br>due to the temperature is hard to say, because the baby enjoys many other kinds<br>of comfort. She sleeps in curious postures, not half of which would be<br>possible under securely fastened blankets.
When awake, she exercises almost<br>constantly and often with surprising violence. Her leg, stomach, and back<br>muscles are especially active and have become strong and hard. It is<br>necessary to watch this performance for only a few minutes to realize how<br>severely restrained the average baby is, and how much energy must be diverted<br>into the only remaining channel crying.
A wider range and variety of behavior are<br>also encouraged by the freedom from clothing. For example, our baby<br>acquitted an amusing, almost apelike skill in the use of her feet. We have<br>devised a number of toys, which are occasionally suspended from the ceiling of<br>the compartment. She often plays with these with her feet alone and with<br>her hands and feet in close cooperation.
One toy is a ring suspended from a<br>modified music box. A note can be played by pulling the ring downward, and<br>a series of rapid jerks will produce Three Blind Mice. At seven months our<br>baby would grasp the ring in her toes, stretch out her leg and play the tune<br>with a rhythmic movement of her foot.
We are not especially interested in<br>developing skills of this sort, but they are valuable for the baby because they<br>arouse and hold her interest. Many babies seem to cry from sheer<br>boredom-their behavior is restrained and they have nothing else to do. In<br>our compartment, the waking hours are invariably active and...