Healthy Eating Habits For A Healthy Baby September 21, 2008

If you’re concerned about your baby’s health, you want to be certain to start healthy eating habits early. The first year of solid foods is a very important time for establishing your child’s eating habits. What your child eats, and more importantly, does not eat, during this time can impact their habits for life. Here are some tips for starting out right with your child’s first menu.

Watch the sugar

This is a biggie. Eliminating refined sugar from your child’s diet in the early days can help the child develop a taste for savory flavors, which in the long run, can help them enjoy a wider variety of foods, without having such a sweet tooth. In addition, a low sugar diet can help ensure that your child maintains a proper weight. So, keep the cookies and candies away. Use fruit and yogurt as dessert. Remember, if your child has not been exposed to sugar, she won’t miss it.

Feed whole grains

Stay away from white flour. Most American diets are painfully low in whole grains, because we are a “white bread” society. Try using wheat breads, oats and other whole grains instead.

Keep the beverages simple

Milk, water and juice are enough. Soda and sweetened drinks will work their way in eventually, but put it off as long as you can. In addition, watering the juice down a bit can help reduce the calories and sugar content. Plus, it minimizes the risk of your child having a stomach ache from too much juice.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again

Keep reintroducing healthy foods, even if they are not met with applause the first time around. The rule in our house is that you have to try any food you don’t like every six months. Children’s tastes change, and what they didn’t like a few months ago might just taste better, so keep trying.

Evaluate the family eating habits

As your child grows, she will be spending more time eating what the rest of the family eats, so it’s important that your eating habits be good, too. Are you serving a wide variety of foods? Think color – too much white food has a lot of calories, and not a lot of nutrition. Green, yellow, red and orange foods should be on your table on a regular basis.

Establishing good eating habits for your child is one of the best gifts you can give her. It will set her off on a lifetime of health and well being. Remember, the best way to get your children to eat well is to be a role model. They will eat the way you eat, so set a good example.

 

 

Catnip and Homeopathic for Colic September 1, 2008

Babies cry. That is a simple fact of life. Babies cry in ever country of the world and many of them suffer from colic. Whether you are an expecting mother or an old pro, you are sure to be familiar with this feared ailment of infants. To sum it up colic equals many hours of crying most often for Mom and Dad along with baby! There is a debate on what causes it but the real deal is babies that seem to have colic, cry and they cry a lot, pretty much all the time for the first few months of their new lives.

The good news is we are not alone in this journey; mothers everywhere have suffered this fate around the world. So you can bet there are plenty of remedies out there and I am willing to bet they may even work. We want an easy fix but it may take a lot of trial and error to find what works for your baby.  Just be sure you use common sense when using herbal remedies since babies have a more delicate digestive system then we do.  Please don’t try anything new without researching it thoroughly first or even asking your doctor!

Here are a few of the cultural remedies I found out there… 

Indian oil head massage.

This is said to calm the baby with an added bonus of bonding mother and child. This one is definitely worth a shot, a good massage never hurt anyone!

Chinese acupuncture and abdominal massage.

Restores harmony and balance to the body.  Again, you cannot go wrong with the massage.

 

Native American herbs.

Catnip tea is apparently not just for your kitty!

British gripe water and onion tea.

An herbal remedy made with herbs like ginger and fennel and is now seen in every drugstore in the US. The onion tea is, well, tea made with an onion.

 

These are just some of the things parents can do to help soothe a fussy baby.  Many cultures use methods that include swaddling, carrying your baby closely to you more often through out the day, chamomile tea, and a variety of other homeopathic means. So next time you want to take junior out for a drive to stop those tears think about the gas you could save (not to mention the cost of the darn gas now too!) and try out a more natural cure.