Healthy baby
Healthy baby
Growing a healthy child
Every child is special and unique and we can see their little personalities growing into a person. Some of our influences will stay and affect their development but most of it-not. There is evidence all around us-having siblings and being treated the same way, same education, parental attention, even the same food they consume and still- different people when they grow up. Do we believe in nature or nurture?
As a Geneticist, I mostly believe in nature but as a parent, I can not let things go under control. Relaxed, lovingly and observatory approach is my “type of parenting” if such a thing even exists.
Nurture
Being a parent of a child who is vegetarian with a strong tendency to be a vegan is not challenging as many would think. According to the World Health Organisation recommendations, a newborn should be solely breast-fed until six months old without any additional food. After this period simple vegetable and fruit options should be introduced, one at the time, taking up to three days to see if a child has certain non-desirable reactions.
Starting with vegetables and then fruits mixed with oats, rice, polenta, finally adding eggs, yogurt and cheese. This was our path and we succeeded to grow this little person to be healthy until her fifteen months. An active, curious and healthy weighted child is not an easy task these days when we are surrounded by simple and fast choices of “baby food”. When choosing such, one has to be very careful and read the content table. Can we eat cooked vegetables with rice after a week or more? Not really..that is why I didn’t give my child any but she did eat a peach or apple pure in a jar.
Daily activities - Natural biorhythm
Schedule for everyday activities is different for every child but after some observations, it is easy to conclude that the vast majority of kids prefer to go to bed between 8-9 pm and wake up early, between 6-7 am. This is a natural healthy biorhythm and should be kept for as long as kids are small and even later..
Between 10 pm and 2 am levels of hormones of sleep and body regeneration are raising and acting. In the early morning, first light is naturally waking up body functions and children should not be kept in bed or put later to sleep just because we think that it is too early to get up-now when they have a chance to sleep.
Activity- no matter where we live, children should be outside twice per day (in the morning and the afternoon), even on harsh winter days when the temperature falls below 0 C. Warmed up not too much but cozy, kids will have chance to breath, play and research which will follow with better rest later. Sleeping twice per day is not very difficult if a child has this specific order (waking up early, going to bed early in the evening).
After waking up (6 am-7 am), babies are usually quiet for some time (15min up to half an hour,). This is the time to do something for you while a baby is busy researching a toy, maybe a cartoon, etc. After that plan three to four hours of baby time-feeding, changing a diaper, playing, going outside for a walk.
Around 9 am-10 am babies will become tired and want to sleep, this is the first daily nap and it can last form one hour up to two hours. Be persistent and put the baby back to sleep if this time is shorter.
From noon till 3 pm-4 pm babies will do the same schedule as in the morning( feeding, playing, going outside for a walk or in the park when they become toddlers). Then they will again sleep, second daily nap up to 5 pm.
The third cycle of awake time includes some more fun activities like bath, listening to music, going through baby books, maybe watching some cartoons and so on.
During a day babies should interact with other kids, spending time with friends, family, etc but in the evening they should be only with people who usually live in their home. This will keep them distressed and well balanced, prepared for better sleep.
And yes, they will wake up, sometimes very very often, and parents will go crazy but it will either pass or we will somehow accommodate to it and finally, keeping a rhythm, taking care of their food intake and above all, their surrounding (positive people, especially animals and nature), will keep your child healthy, active and stable-growing into special person they should become.
Recommendations:
Avoid using breastfeeding by pumped milk because the child will get used to the bottle and stop breastfeeding.
Avoid negative people and spend as much time as you can in nature, with animals to raise the level of oxytocin -happy hormones because it will boost the child’s immune system response and yours:)
