Looking for gift ideas for baby showers or baby namings beyond cute baby outfits and big items? Dr. Kardos welcomes a little one into her family soon so we thought we’d give you some pediatrician-inspired ideas. These gifts support the essentials of what little (and big) people need to do: eat, sleep, pee, poop, love, and learn.
EAT
Pick up breast pump accessories, bottles and nipples, post-partum doula help, and lactation consultant sessions for the new mom.
Vitamin D supplementation is recommended for all babies, whether breast or formula fed. The dose is 400 IU = 10mcg per day. Ask the pharmacist for help finding these over-the-counter baby vitamins.
As Drs. Kardos and Lai can attest, even a pediatrician’s child does not always approach the prospect of an immunization with a grin on their face. When Dr. Lai’s daughter was two years old, she thanked her nurse for her flu vaccine by giving her a surprise punch. Here are ways you can take away the sting of a needle if your child is afraid of vaccines.
Set the stage
Your child looks to you for clues on how to act. If mommy and daddy are trembling in the corner of the room, it will be difficult to convince your child that the immunization is “no big deal.” Do avoid a weeks-long build up. Simply announce to your child right before you leave to get the immunization, ”We are going to get an immunization to protect you from getting sick.”
Whether your child is starting preschool or their last year of high school, use our back to school health tips to start strong:
Sleep
Even if school started for your child, you have time to change their summer sleep schedule. You can adjust it to fit their school year sleep needs.
Take a week or so to gradually dial back their bedtime. Otherwise, they will spend the first week of school jet lagged. The right amount of sleep for your child is whatever amount it takes them to wake naturally or to awaken with minimal prompting . Some kids need 8- 9 hours of sleep, others require 11-12 hours.
Beds are for sleeping only: no playing, studying, phone scrolling, or completing homework in bed. Teach them to “let go” of the day and associate their bed with drifting off to sleep.
Make sure kids of all ages get some exercise, preferably outside, to ward off insomnia at bedtime. On the other hand, exercise too close to bedtime will wind a child up.
There are many reasons that your baby may need formula or breast milk fed through a bottle. Some parents initially feel guilty using a bottle. If this is the case with you, know that babies bond with their parents and other caregivers with every bottle they take. One benefit of bottle feeding is that moms can get more sleep. After all, they are recovering from the herculean feat of giving birth and others can share in nourishing the baby. Below are tips for bottle feeding your baby:
Different babies are different
Some newborns will want the equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner. That is, they may take 2-3 ounces at one feeding. Others have had enough to eat after a small snack of half an ounce. Your baby will tell you they’ve had enough by pushing the bottle out of their mouth or using the bottle as a pacifier (non nutritive suck) rather than sucking hard enough to draw out the liquid (nutritive suck). Do not panic if your baby is a little gaggy when they first learn to drink. Remember, they spend 9 months getting nutrition through an umbilical cord and are inexperienced with sucking and swallowing.
Charles West Cope (British, 1811 – 1890 ), Woman Reading to a Child, Gift of William B. O’Neal 1995.52.28
We know parents who started reading to their children before they were born, but don’t fret if you didn’t start when baby was in the womb. It’s never too late to start. Today we give you a developmental guide to reading with your young child.
Three months of age
By three months of age, most babies are sleeping more hours overnight and fewer hours during the day (and, hence, so are their parents). Now you have time to incorporate reading into your baby’s daily schedule. At this age babies can visually scan pictures on both pages of a book. Babies see better close-up, so you can either prop your baby on your lap with a book in front of both of you, or you can lie down next to your baby on the rug and hold the book up in front of both of you. The classic Goodnight, Moon by Margaret Wise Brown or any basic picture book is a great choice at this age.
Six months of age
By six months of age many babies sit alone or propped and it is easier to have a baby and book in your lap more comfortably. Board books work well at this age because 6-month-olds explore their environment by touching, looking, and MOUTHING. Sandra Boynton’s Moo, Baa, La La La was a favorite of Dr. Kardos’s twins at this age, both to read and to chew on.
With measles, Benjamin Franklin’s old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” holds. Unfortunately, pediatricians don’t have any medication that kills the measles virus. Children who are hospitalized are given support, but nothing to kill the germ. For instance, pediatricians may give oxygen to children with measles pneumonia. Pediatricians may also give Vitamin A to help prevent blindness from measles, but again, vitamins do not stop the germ.
Giving your child the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine is the best and most natural method to prevent measles. Immunizations prompt a body’s own immune system to make antibodies. These “germ fighters” are ready to defend your child when a nasty virus like measles appears. Pediatricians give this vaccine according to a tried and true vaccine schedule at 12-15 months of age and again at 4-6 years of age. The recent death of an unvaccinated child from measles in Texas serves as a tragic reminder of the risks of not vaccinating.
How nasty is this virus?
Pretty nasty. About 1 in 5 people infected with measles end up in the hospital, and pneumonia strikes about 1 out of about every 20 children with measles. If you think about a classroom of children, that’s a lot of kids.
Dr. Kardos recalls what a game-changer it was when her twin babies could feed themselves. Although messy, it was much easier than spoon feeding simultaneously two hungry babies. Now that you started your baby on solids using ideas from our last post, let’s move on to tips on cups, finger foods and more. Mealtime will be less chaotic.
Cups and finger foods
Starting at six months your child moves towards three solid food meals a day. Babies continue to drink breast milk or formula in between, but you can start teaching them how to use a cup. Offer a few sips of water, formula or breast milk when they sit down to eat. Use any type of cup, including an open cup. Avoid juice since it contains a lot of sugar and very little nutrition.
Your baby stares at you as you eat, and their eyes follow everything you put into your mouth. Are they ready to join your family at the dinner table? Has your pediatrician given you the go-ahead to start feeding your baby solid foods? Here are tips on how to start your baby on food.
Before you get started
Eating a meal with family is social as well as nutritious. Keep eating a pleasant and relaxed experience. Avoid force-feeding or tricking your child into eating. Feed your baby at the family table. Your baby learns to eat by watching others eat. Family meals foster family connections.
The first taste: Babies expect a breast or a bottle when hungry. So make sure your baby is happy and awake but NOT starving the first time you feed her solid food because at this point she is learning a skill, not eating for nutrition. Keep a camera nearby because babies make great faces when eating food for the first time. Many parents like to start new foods in the morning so that they have the entire day to make sure it agrees with their baby.
A google search of baby food pouches yields overwhelming options. When I see babies sucking on these pouches I think: are we in a spaceship? We are raising children, not astronauts. Most of us do not suck our meals; we bite and chew them. Please consider the following problematic aspects of baby food pouches before you buy more of them.
This is not the first time we have published this post. Again, a school shooting happened, and you may be wondering how to explain this tragedy to your children.
Understand that your kids sense your emotions. Not telling them about an event may make them concerned that they are the cause for your worried hushed conversations. Break away from your discussion with adults to say, “Do you know what we are talking about? We are not talking about you.”
While difficult, it is possible to talk about a school shooting with your child in an age-appropriate manner.
Even though an event may be far away, media makes it seem as if it happened next door, and sooner or later your children will see or hear about it. Tell the facts in a straight forward, age appropriate manner. Answer questions and don’t be afraid to answer with an “I don’t know.”
Preschoolers are concrete in their thinking—dragons are real and live under their bed, so don’t put any there that do not exist. For a preschooler a simple “Mom is sad because a lot of people got hurt,” will suffice. Young school-aged kids will want to know more details. And be prepared to grapple with more high level questions from teens.
