Holistic Pediatricians

Dr. Chheda – All kids wanna be the same. You know we wanna wear the same clothes, they wanna have the same Stanley Cup. I mean just look at TikTok, look at all those TikTok challenges: “Oh I wanna do it because everybody else is doing it.”

Help your child not only understand but celebrate their unique identity. They don’t have to be the same as everybody else, but understand that that’s what kids automatically wanna do.

They wanna be the same and it’s up to you to help them express their own identity, to help them be unique, to celebrate them the way they are. There is only one of them. ✨

Becoming eco-friendly is easier than you think. I know in our office we’ve adapted to having more QR codes here at Harmony Pediatrics. That way that reduces the amount of paper that we’re throwing away.

And using cloth diapers for some operations.

Great! We do use it.

What ways are you all becoming more eco-friendly?

Dr. Chheda – When babies are first born, they’re born with their hands fisted. At 2 months of age, they start opening up that fist, relaxing it. At 4 months, they start looking at their hand and oh, this is kind of interesting. I wonder what it tastes like? And they might gag themselves. If there’s something in their hand, they’re gonna try to wanna put that in their mouth as well too, but they don’t quite know where their mouth is with an object. So they might hit themselves all over the place until they finally get into their mouth.

At 6 months of age, they will have a–they will actually reach for something and put it directly into their mouth.

At 9 months of age, they will start picking up the smallest little piece, garbage on the floor with their finger in their thumb. That’s a normal reflex and whether they look at it or whether they put it in their mouth, hmm that’s on them.

But that’s hand development in the first year of life.

Dr. Chheda – There’s a lot of talk about mindfulness and meditation, living in the moments, and yes, that is great for all of us to do.

But you know who does it automatically? Toddlers do it automatically, babies do it. They’re always living in the moment. But kids who have ADD also are living in the moment. They’re not thinking about what happened in the past, and they’re not thinking about what’s gonna happen in the future. They’re just thinking about “this is what I’m doing right now, I’m happy right now doing this.” And this is being present in the moment.

So even children who have ADD can be mindful, and you can learn something from your child even if they have ADD.

Dr. Chheda – 9-8-8. This is the number that you should program into all of your cell phones, including your children’s cell phones. 9-8-8. This is the help line, this is the crisis line, this is the suicide line – whatever you wanna call it.

9-8-8. You can text it, you can call it whenever you are just feeling low, whenever your child is feeling low, especially your early teens, teenagers.

It has been proven that the one thing that helps is reaching out and talking to somebody. They can call somebody at 9-8-8, they can text somebody. It is answered by a live person. There is no bot, it is answered by a live person, and that connection, that human connection, is what helps.

🌱 How do you teach your kid to be conservation minded? Um, my kids are in Scouts and one of the rank requirements is actually to go on a picnic or a trip with your family and take note of how much trash you produce during that trip.

That’s a good one!

That’s a good one. And then similarly, on another trip you wanna talk about, kind of think about ways that you would eliminate that extra trash, that extra baggage.

Oh, that’s nice.

And so things that you hit on are recycling, reducing, reusing.

That’s right, yes.

I like it. So I do challenge you guys – go on a trip, go outside, enjoy this lovely weather, and take note of the trash you produce, and then hopefully minimize it the next time. Bye guys!

Dr. Chheda – Your baby can see when they’re first born. They can see colors – you don’t have to keep everything black and white. But their vision is really only about 12 inches, only about a foot, only about from your face to where you’re holding the baby in your arms when you’re feeding. That’s really what they can focus on.

Over time their focus will get better and they will start seeing further and further away. Around 6 months of age, they can start seeing across the room.

So if you have bright colors on, just kind of move around. Wear your bright colors and move around ’cause they will follow the bright colors. They will follow younger siblings. They will follow your pets running all around the house.

The one thing that they really love staring at is a ceiling fan, ’cause really when they’re lying on their back, that’s really all they can see. So your baby can see, your baby can see in colors. If you have any concern about your baby’s vision, please talk to your pediatrician.

Dr. Chheda – The typical symptoms of a cold you might notice is a runny nose, but what really is happening with all the other symptoms? So initially you get a little drip, postnatal drip down the back of your throat, so your throat might feel a little scratchy. So your kids may not wanna eat as much, or they might say my throat hurts. It’s not so much that you can really tell, but you feel eager that scratchiness first.

And then the next day you produce enough mucus that you actually see the runny nose. And then when that running mucus increases, you’ll not only see from the outside, but you get more mucus draining down, and kids will automatically cough to try to keep all that mucus out of their lungs.

We don’t wanna stop the cough. We stop the cough the mucus will drain into the lungs and can turn into a pneumonia. So we want them to cough. Now kids are not great at coughing out, so they cough up and then they swallow the mucus into their stomach.

Now their stomach is full of mucus, so they don’t wanna eat because they’re full of mucus, and they might throw up because mucus is very irritating. So they’ll throw up some mucus, or they might have diarrhea cause all that mucus is gotta come out somehow. So you have more slimy poops.

So yes, you can get vomiting and diarrhea with a cold, and it’s all related to the mucus. Once you stop the mucus, the runny nose stops, the post nasal drip and the sore throat stops, the cough stops, the vomiting stops, the diarrhea stops. Mucus is the issue. So those wanna deal with the mucus part of it, not the other symptoms. All the symptoms will go away once you stop the mucus.

Dr. Chheda – A lot of teenage girls come in and say, “Oh, I’ve got cramps.” Cramps are normal, everybody gets cramps with their periods. Wrong! You are not supposed to get cramps with your period.

Please, if you’re getting cramps, there are things that we can do about it. We don’t want you to be in pain. I definitely don’t want you to be in pain.

So if you’re getting cramps with your periods, please talk to your pediatrician about it because you should not be getting cramps from period. We’re not supposed to normalize pain, so please try not to do it. There are ways around it.

💬 It’s important to give back. Absolutely! I cannot agree with that statement more. I think sometimes as adults we are part of organizations and we find fun things to do, whether be a 5K run for a fundraiser, whether it be donating hours, food bank, soup kitchen, that type of things. Even getting the kids’ old shoes and clothes are things like that – it gives back.

Don’t miss those opportunities with your children as well. Don’t just do it – show them how to do it.

I think giving back is a wonderful opportunity to build confidence and to show them how to be good to your community and to those who are less fortunate. I think it’s a good reality check for some of our children.

Humbles them.

Teaches them gratitude. And your child is never too young. I remember I used to take my son to a soup kitchen when he was 1, and he would scribble on the brown paper bags that we would put food in, and then go and deliver it to people in need. So your child is never too young. Don’t forget to give back.