Holistic Pediatricians

Dr. Chheda – 🌿 Do you ever feel like you’re just overwhelmed and you can’t control your emotions and everything is just gonna come to an end? Go take a walk outside and realize that nature can help calm you down.

But not only can it help calm you down, but it can help calm your child down, regardless of how old your child is. Even newborn babies will calm down if you just take them outside for a few minutes and rock them gently.

Nature has a calming effect on newborns, on toddlers, on teenagers, on adults – anybody who feels like they’re just getting overwhelmed and they just can’t handle the stress anymore. Just go outside for a walk.

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So a few healthy tips that we often forget about. The first is sleeping. It is important to sleep well at night, you know, averaging about 8 to 9 hours for teenagers, 10 to 13 hours for younger kiddos that are in school. Making sure you’re well rested, having a good sleep routine. Absolutely.

You also want to eat healthy. I know sometimes that’s a difficult one. You want the things that are unhealthy, right? But try to have some balance with it. It really does make a difference. At Harmony Pediatrics, we often tell our patients to eat the rainbow, so they’re eating their fruits, their grains, their veggies, their protein, their dairy – all the things.

And stay active is also very important – at least 30 minutes a day, three to four days a week. Absolutely, of physical activity. And don’t forget screen time – limit the screen time as much as you can. I know with school age kids, it gets kind of challenging because today everything’s – even your classwork is on a computer. But the screen time that we’re talking about is more of the video games, right? Your internet surfing, your TikTok videos. You want to limit that, and especially before bedtime – no screens an hour before bedtime. That’s right.

Remember, small choices today grow big healthy futures tomorrow.

Dr. Chheda – 💝 There is no perfect eater and there’s no perfect parent. You’re modeling compassion. You need to use your intuition. 🍽️ Some reminders for the hard days: It is okay to serve the same four foods during a very tough week. Exposure is progress – exposing your child to different foods. And you are also modeling emotional regulation. You’re not choosing your emotions over your meals.

Dr. Chheda – 🚨 When is it more than just picky eating? Some red flags to bring up with your pediatrician are if your child is choking or gagging on foods, if there’s a lot of rigidity or anxiety surrounding mealtimes, if there’s a regression in food skills.

🍽️ If they were able to swallow and now they’re not able to swallow, that’s a problem. Or if there’s weight loss, or your child is not gaining appropriately on the growth curve. These are all signs that you need to talk to your pediatrician about.

💚 You are not overreacting. Early intervention is a gift.

Dr. Chheda – 🧬 You may have heard a lot about leucovorin recently, especially if you have a child with autism. What is leucovorin? Leucovorin is folinic acid. It is vitamin B9.

So let’s back up a little bit. Vitamin B9 is folate. Folate is found naturally in foods like broccoli and kidney beans. Folic acid is the synthetic form that is found in supplemented foods like breads – it’s supplemented with folic acid.

Now both folate and folic acid you ingest, and then the body converts it into methylfolate. Methylfolate is the active form that goes into the brain to help with the nervous system developing appropriately.

Leucovorin is folinic acid. It is a medical supplement that also goes into the brain to help with nervous system development. Now whether you take folinic acid, leucovorin, or whether you take methylfolate, which is a supplement that you can buy over the counter, both of them can go into the brain and help with nervous system development.

Now does your child with autism need any one of these? Not everybody does. There are tests that you can do to see: does your child need folinic acid? Do they have the receptors? Are they receptor deficient? Or do they have the enzyme, the methylfolate, the MTHFR enzyme that actually helps with the conversion? If they have the receptor, if they have the enzyme, you don’t necessarily have to give them any extra supplementation. But if they don’t, the supplementation may definitely help.

Discuss this with your pediatrician. Here at Harmony Pediatrics, we offer an individualized approach and we can do the testing.

Boredom isn’t a problem, it’s a superpower in disguise. How many of your kids have said “Mom, we’re bored, we’re bored”? That’s actually okay.

It helps encourage reflection and introspection. It helps them become more creative and engage in imaginative play. Problem-solving skills, absolutely. You know, they’re bored – that’s their problem. Well, what are they gonna do about it? Absolutely.

And it helps them become more independent and try to entertain themselves without a parent or a sister or brother. Absolutely. Or a device sometimes. Or a device, or a device. Gets those creative juices flowing as to how can I deal with this. So boredom’s okay.

Dr. Chheda – 🍎 Every age has its challenges. This section is going to provide you with some milestone-based strategies. Offer a variety of different foods. It is not about volume, it is about variety. Focus on foods that have lots of iron in them. Focus on lots of different vegetables.

For your 1 to 3-year-olds, expect them to refuse food – that’s developmentally normal. And you may have to reintroduce a food up to 15 times before you say this is not gonna be in our selection. And stick to the parent decides, child chooses principle. Don’t let the child decide what to eat.

For your preschoolers, your 3 to 5-year-olds, have them help you. Have them go shopping with you. Have them prep the foods with you and make food playful. Call broccoli trees – they’ll enjoy it and they’ll eat it.

Dr. Chheda – 🧠 Okay, your child has ADHD and you’ve heard a lot about magnesium. Does magnesium help every child with ADHD? No, it doesn’t.

Here at Harmony Peeds, we focus on your individual child. There might be certain things that might may help him that may not help him. Magnesium might help, might be zinc, maybe ferritin levels are low.

We take an individualized approach. So bring in your child if you think they have ADD. We’ll do an individualized plan for them based on their certain symptoms, based on lab work. Maybe magnesium will help, and maybe it won’t.

Dr. Chheda – The most powerful influence on a child’s relationship with food is the environment around them. You are modeling how to, not just what to eat.

Try to have meal times together. Serve yourself the same foods you would serve your child. Honor your child’s hunger and fullness cues. Make meal times screen-free and judgment-free.

📋 Responsibility starts with you teaching your children. Responsibility really does start at an early age. You want to start small and age-appropriate simple tasks.

Your 5 or 6-year-old may help you unload the dishwasher. Your 10 or 11-year-old may start taking out the trash. You want to use routines to teach them accountability and structure. Repetition is going to be your friend in this task.

Model responsibility – you take out the trash. I’m also give them choices. Let them make small decisions when it’s appropriate – choosing snacks or what they’re going to wear for. Absolutely, absolutely.

Another important thing is to teach consequences, so don’t always rescue your child. Help have them help kind of brainstorm, try to problem solve. Absolutely. And let them tell their teacher why they didn’t bring. That’s right. And if they mess up, it’s okay. Praise effort, not just results, so it’s always an A for effort.

And chore charts are something I always use with my kids. They help absolutely. A lot, absolutely, absolutely. You also want to encourage problem solving as much as possible. That’s right. That helps them in the long run, not just with responsibility, but also with life skills.