Holistic Pediatricians

Dr. Chheda – 🏆 My third grader won first place in a science contest without studying, and his teacher was so excited. I was not. I actually went up to the teacher and said, “I’m not really happy that he got first place in a science contest that he didn’t study for.” And the teacher was amazed. She’s like, “Why not?”

💚 I said, “Well, I don’t want everything to be so easy for him. He needs to fail. He needs to know that hard work pays off and it’s just not skating through, coasting on everything.”

No, let your kids fail. Don’t make everything easy for them. They need to know how to pick themselves up from the ground and practice and try again. Just because they don’t get it the first time doesn’t mean that they stop.

They need to fail so that they learn how to pick themselves back up and try again. That’s what life is all about – picking yourself back up, having the resilience to do it. So it’s okay, let them fail.

🍽️ It’s really important for your kids to eat healthy. One of my favorite, favorite websites is myplate .gov is amazing! 💚 What’s myplate .gov? It actually will create a modified dietary plan for your child – individualized! Simply you put in your child’s age, gender, sometimes height and weight, and it will come up to the ounce of how much of each food group your child should be consuming a day.

Wow, so like calorie intakes, everything? All the things! All the things! So eat healthy, eat right, and check out myplate .gov!

Dr. Chheda – 👶 What are the five S’s that Dr. Harvey Karp has talked about to have a happy baby? These are the five S’s that all pediatricians talk about.

The five S’s include:

1️⃣ Swaddling your baby

2️⃣ Swinging your baby

3️⃣ Side (having baby lay on their side or stomach while swinging)

4️⃣ Shushing your baby

5️⃣ Sucking on something (like a pacifier)

💚 If you do this on a regular basis, you will have the happiest baby on the block.

Dr. Chheda – Okay, holiday season is coming up and you might want to travel with your toddler. So your toddler, between the ages of 12 months to 24 months – you know, just before they hit the age of 2 – if you want to fly on a plane, should you get them an extra seat or not? So just remember, if you’ve got this 15, 18-month-old and you don’t want to buy that extra seat, you’re gonna have to keep your toddler confined to a space about this big on your lap for the entirety of the flight. And they’re really gonna want to jump up and run around, and that’s not safe for anybody.

So you might want to get that extra seat for your toddler. Just think about it. I know it’s a financial expense, but it might help keep your sanity.

Dr. Chheda – One way to get kids to eat food is to spice it up. Put different spices on your food. Try something different and see if they like the taste of it, because food tastes so much better when there’s flavor to it.

Mrs. Dash is a great one because they have different flavorings, different combinations, and it doesn’t have any sodium in it. This is just a sample of what I have. I also have other spices as well too. I have a whole revolving rack. And of course, every Indian house has their own spice box as well too.

But if you can, just put some flavor onto your vegetables – not make them bland or boring – but give them maybe a little heat, a little sweetness, a little something, a little pizazz. And then your kids might start actually eating their vegetables.

🩺 Are your teens doing their monthly breast exams? Yeah, it is a misconception that breast cancer or lumps only happen when girls are older. A lot of times teenage girls will have fibrocystic breasts, and especially around the time of their periods.

That’s right. And fibrocystic breasts are just benign, non-cancerous thickening of your breast tissue. And it usually happens because of the hormone fluctuations that take place during your period. And so they are completely benign, but sometimes they can feel kind of ropey, they can feel lumpy, they might be a little uncomfortable or tender.

And so it’s really important for your girls to do monthly breast exams once they get their period. And it’s best to do it on their last day of their period, or just after. And, you know, let them kind of get a feel for how their breasts typically feel – like the texture. And if they feel anything worrisome, give us a call: 770-475-9924.

Dr. Chheda – 🌿 Patient recently told me that whenever he goes outside, his anxiety goes away. Of course! Nature is a great healer. We were not meant to be inside. We were not meant to be cooped up just staring at a screen all day long. We’re supposed to be outside.

You know, our body was made to garner vitamin D from the sun, to get melatonin, to calm down with the presence of plants, of animals, to hear the sounds of birds. It is very calming.

If you feel like you are stressed out, or your kid is just having a temper tantrum, just go outside for a few minutes and you will see how easy it is to help relax those emotions.

Make it part of your daily ritual to go outside at some point, to just decompress, to get away from screens, and just see how more relaxed you actually feel. It will be amazing.

They should never take away recess, outdoor recess, from school because kids need to be outside.

Dr. Chheda – 🎃 Halloween is a magical time – all the costumes, the trick or treating, the parties. Oh, it is great! It is a kids’ holiday. Even adults want to get in on all the fun.

But you want to make sure that your child is safe when they go trick or treating. Make sure their costumes are visible. You can also put some reflective tape on their costumes as well. Make sure an adult goes with them, and just double check all the treats before they eat them.

Now for the teenagers, they might want to hang out by themselves and not go along with the parent. Again, just make sure that they’re safe in a neighborhood that you approve of, that they’re not wandering off. But let them go out, let them have fun.

Adults, you guys have fun as well too. Halloween is great. We want to make it safe and keep it fun.

Dr. Chheda – ⭐ You may have seen teenagers, some adults, with these little star stickers on their faces. Do you know what those are? Those are pimple patches, and they are a game changer. So there’s two kinds of pimple patches. One are those that have salicylic acid in them. Those are for pimples that have a head but have not popped. They’re like the on-the-spot treatment, just a little bit of salicylic acid. You put the little patch on and it will take away the pimple.

Now for a pimple that’s already burst and it’s open, you can put on the colloid patches. So you have to check in the ingredients if it’s a salicylic acid patch or colloid patch. But the salicylic acid patches are for those pimples that have not popped, and the colloidal patches are for those pimples that have popped. And they basically form a little gel, but it also prevents you from picking at the pimple, and this way you don’t end up with scars. Now you can only use these on actual whitehead pimples. You can’t use them on the cystic acne pimples, on the really deep ones – just the ones that are on the surface, the ones that we typically associate with teenagers.

But these patches are a game changer. You put them on overnight or during the day, and you take it off and your skin can be nice and clear. So try one out.

🎃 Kids always look forward to Halloween and getting all the treats. But are these treats really safe? At your pediatrician’s office, there are lots of questions and concerns about how to safely receive these candies and give these candies to your children.

You want to remember the rule of thumb of being safe. Only go to neighborhoods where you’re familiar and that you know. So stick to your own neighborhood. Try not to go into areas that you’re not familiar with the people.

Also now, there are lots of community events – local parks, local businesses, sometimes your churches, communities – where again, you know the people and they know you, so you should feel more comfortable.

But always, still look through the candy with your children. Don’t just allow them to go in the bag and eat things that you’re not sure of what they’re eating and where it came from. And it should always be wrapped, always individually wrapped. Happy Halloween!