Nutrition

Dr. Chheda – You might be meeting lots of family and friends over the holidays, and you might be telling your child to go hug a person. Now if your child is comfortable doing that, that’s fine. But if your child is uncomfortable hugging anybody or having anybody touch them, physical touch, it is perfectly fine. Do not shame your child, do not blame your child.

If your child is uncomfortable, that’s perfectly fine. Your child is observing other people. Your child does not need to hug everybody that is around them. You need to protect them – they are your child. You don’t have to save face in society. Please protect your child. If they really don’t want to hug somebody, that’s perfectly fine. You can say, you can be polite and say hello. You can observe, “My child is not comfortable with touch, with other people’s touch, and that’s perfectly fine. My child is sensitive,” however you want to phrase it. But don’t force your child to do something that is not necessary.

Tell me about your weekend. Well, my weekend was okay, but oh my gosh, did I tell you like that whole stomach bug like came through my house? Ugh, disgusting!

And I like – moment of truth – I do not like vomit. I can deal with all kinds of things, but vomit is almost like a kryptonite to me. Oh yes, I like, like it just, it’s yeah, it’s bad. And trying to get it out of your carpet – have you ever tried to get it out of your carpet? Almost impossible! Do you have tricks?

Yeah, so apparently you’re supposed to like blot and get up like all the chunk and the liquid. But what’s like that residue that you can’t like get out? Never scrub! They say don’t scrub it. Oh yeah, cause you’re gonna push it back in. Yeah, you’re gonna push it further in. What you do is you get a like a paste of baking soda and dish soap, and you wet it first – paste of baking soda or dish soap and peroxide, or you can use vinegar. And that apparently lifts it to the surface, which makes it better to get out. But you’re still blotting, don’t ever scrub it in.

Good to know! Stay healthy!

Dr. Chheda – 👂 A lot of kids want to get their ears pierced, and that’s perfectly fine for them to do. You want to make sure that you go to a place that uses sterile equipment to pierce ears. And after the earring is placed, you want to follow the instructions – keep the area nice and clean with lots of soap and water every day. ✅ Once healed, the earring should not:

Hurt

Ooze

Bleed

Scab

⚠️ If there’s a problem, your child might be allergic to the earring material.

💚 Safe earring materials: 100% medical grade plastic (what we use at Harmony Pediatrics!) Titanium 100% sterling silver These usually don’t cause skin reactions. If you or your child is interested in ear piercing, please contact us at Harmony Pediatrics!

Dr. Chheda – One of the most annoying symptoms is cough.

Now there are different types of cough. There can be that dry kind of scratchy cough in your throat – you can just drink some water and then that’ll soothe your throat and it should be fine.

There’s also the cough like if you choke on food, coughing to try to get it out. You know, pat your child on the back, they’ll get it out and that cough goes away.

Then there’s the asthmatic cough where they’re just trying to take a deep breath and they just can’t, and they’re wheezing and they’re coughing. Please give them their albuterol, whether it’s by the nebulizer or by the inhaler. Just give them their albuterol. A cough at that point is a signal that their asthma is acting up and that you need to treat the asthma.

Then you can have the dry, barky cough at night, which is a sign of croup. And for croup it has its own set of instructions. But the cough that’s most annoying is that wet cough. Your child has got a runny nose and just mucus is pouring out of their nose, mucus is draining down the back of their throat, and they’re just coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing because they can’t blow their nose or they can’t clear up that mucus. They’re not able to hack up all those loogies.

What do you do for that kind of cough? Absolutely nothing! You don’t want to treat the cough at that point. The cough is protective. It is protecting the lungs from all that mucus draining down. If you were to stop the cough, all that mucus will drain down into their lungs and turn it into a pneumonia. You don’t want to stop that cough.

What you want to do is you want to dry up the mucus. Once the mucus is gone, the cough automatically stops. So think about drying up the mucus, whether that’s using saline and having your child blow their nose a lot, whether that’s using an antihistamine to dry up the mucus. But you want to get rid of the mucus. Once you do that, the cough will automatically stop.

Dr. Chheda – Okay, for all you moms who have girls – all the girl moms – if you were, you know, in your late 20s, early 30s when you had your girl, and now 12 years later, your girl is starting to go through puberty, she’s starting to menstruate, her moods are all over the place, she’s going a little wacky, she’s a little crazy. But guess what, moms? You are now in your late 40s and you are going through perimenopause.

Your hormones are also cycling. Your daughter’s hormones are cycling up, but your hormones are cycling down. And guess what? You’re moody and cranky, and now you put the two of you together – no wonder you guys are headbutting each other.

So just realize some of this is natural, but it might be time for you as a mom to get your hormones checked. Hormone replacement therapy, menopause – talk to your physician.

Making your own baby food – it can save time, definitely some money, and it is tons of fun. Only if you like to cook! I like to cook, so I was just looking everything up. 10 years ago I used to make my babies’ baby food all the time.

And the cost of sweet potatoes – if you buy like phase one or phase 2 Gerber pouches, was anywhere between 27 and 34 cents per ounce. Now with inflation, it’s actually gone up an extra 25 cents. Now if you were to buy a sweet potato, how much does a pound of sweet potato cost? Easily, I mean, you can get them anywhere from like 15 cents to 25 cents a pound. So you can make several meals from one, just one sweet potato. Just one! And that’s not even like a whole pound. Yeah!

And you can season it. You can, for the 6-months-old, add breast milk or formula to make it more of a puree. Yeah, thin it out. So definitely worth your while.

Dr. Chheda – The other day I saw a mom and her toddler bike riding on the sidewalk, and it’s great. I’m glad that parents are going out with your kids. I’m glad kids are active. However, what bothered me – and I’m not sure if it bothered me because I’m a mom or because I’m a pediatrician – but the child was on the curb edge of the sidewalk while the mom was on the inner side.

Now I prefer the parent to be on the outside, on the curb side, and the child to be on the inside of the sidewalk. You never know what’s gonna happen – the child loses balance, a car veers off the wrong way. You never want the child to be the first one to be hurt. Please, if you’re walking with your toddler, if you’re bike riding, scooter riding, whatever – please have your toddler on the inside of the sidewalk and you be on the curb of the sidewalk. Thank you.

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.

Dr. Chheda – 🍽️ Meal time isn’t just about food – it’s about connection, it’s about emotions. If you’re having power struggles, if there’s parental anxiety around the meal, or if you’re trying to rush the meal, it’s all gonna backfire.

Reset the vibe. Don’t create power struggles. Let your child self-serve when possible. Create rituals around the meals like gratitude. Never force bites – that will create a lot of resistance.

And lastly, have a neutral emotion at the table. It’s not about “Oh great, you finished the food!” It’s all about “Oh, there’s food to be had.”

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 eight to nine 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, 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.

Being 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 class work 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.