Nutrition

🏕️ Scouting America, it formerly was called Boy Scouts of America, but now to kind of have a more inclusive name since they are taking everybody, boys and girls, it has officially been changed to Scouting America.

My kids are in Scouts. We love it! It truly challenges both my daughters and my son to make good choices. It teaches good life skills, absolutely teaches life skills, and really to be more resilient and face challenges head on.

Dr. Chheda – 👶 Babies can get spoiled by 6 months of age, so around 4 months of age you wanna stop attending to every single one of their cries. Now you know their hunger cry, you know their pain cry – you always wanna attend that. But it’s their attention cry – “wait, wait, wait, I just want some attention” – that’s the one I want you to ignore for a few minutes.

You can kinda peek around the corner and make sure they’re doing okay, but leave them alone. Don’t immediately go to them, and this includes everybody in the house, whether it’s grandparents, whether it’s older siblings. Tell them to leave the 4 month old alone for a few minutes and see what the 4 month old does.

You know, maybe the 4 month old will get distracted by something else, or maybe they’ll find their hands, or they’ll find something, but let them learn how to self soothe.

This is the age when they learn how to self soothe. If by 6 months they haven’t figured out how to self soothe, and you still are going to them for that attention cry, they are spoiled and they will manipulate you. 🌿

Dr. Chheda – A typical stomach virus will start with vomiting for 24 to 48 hours. If you’re gonna get a fever, you’re gonna get it during the vomiting period. After the vomiting period is over, then you end up with diarrhoea, and the diarrhoea can last for up to 10 days.

For toddlers, we actually want them to have diarrhoea because that’s the only way to get rid of the virus. So you will have vomiting and possibly fever for 24 to 48 hours, and then the diarrhea starts. The diarrhea can last for up to 10 days depending on the type of virus it is.

They can get dehydrated, but as long as they’re taking in enough fluids, they shouldn’t have a problem with dehydration. During the diarrhoea period, we get more concerned with the vomiting period with dehydration. But with the diarrhoea period, they’re eating fine, they’re just passing everything through, so you wanna make sure that they’re getting plenty of liquids.

One thing that some people avoid is dairy products, because if you have dairy products during the diarrhea period, the vomiting may come back. So you wanna try to avoid dairy products, but otherwise everything else is typically fine to have during the diarrhea period.

You also may wanna avoid anything with a lot of sugar content like fruit juices, because the sugar can cause the diarrhea to be worse. However, if that’s the only thing that they’re drinking, we want them to drink it because we want them to stay hydrated during the diarrhea period.

For the vomiting period which is early on, that’s a little bit more tough, but you should talk to your pediatrician about that if you feel like they’re getting dehydrated. 🏥

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.