All About Your Child

Give your child the best.

Although most parents know that breast feeding is the best choice, but the perceived inconvenience, previous attempts failure and lack of knowledge on the actual advantages that breastmilk have caused many newborns to be denied benefiting from breastfeeding.

In the beginning, it may be frustrating and may take some effort to get it started right, but once the perserverance has passed the test, you are on your way to make a big difference in you and your baby’s life.

Breastfeeding creates a special bond between you and your baby. Every mother’s milk has a unique smell to a baby. This enhances bonding between the mother and baby. In fact this is a great help to promote behavioural development of the baby. Bottle feeding is merely providing food and even then, not necessarily the best food.

All the right kinds of fat in breastmilk comes in higher quantity but is more easily absorbable than formula milk. These include Omega fatty acids, such as DHA and AHA, which enhance your baby’s brain and vision development when they needed most.

Breastmilk contains more carbohydrates compared to formula milk to meet your baby’s needs.

Breastmilk contains less protein than formula milk, but this protein is of a form that is more digestible for the sensitive stomach. All the protein from breastmilk can be absorbed by your baby, unlike formula milk.

The proportion of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals in breastmilk changes with the needs of your growing baby up to 6 months of age. Formula milk proportion stays the same and are often less easily absorbable.

The amount of water in breast milk is just right to satisfy your baby’s thirst, thus, when you breastfeed your baby, you do not need to give water at all. The proportion of water in formula milk is dependent on how much you put in.

There are more than a hundred ingredients in breastmilk that cannot be created with human hands or brain. These are important for your baby’s complete development.

The anitbodies in breastmilk help your baby fight against infection. These are absent in formula milk. Bottle fed babies are more likely to suffer from diarrhea, ear, lung and urine infections, increases anxiety and visits to the clinic.

The taste of breast milk varies according to the mother’s diet while formula milk taste the same all the time. Thus, breastfed babies are more ready to try new food during weaning then bottle fed babies.

In the long run, breastfed babies are less likely to develop obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes when they grow up.

The best part is the mother gets to return back to her pre-pregnant weight more quickly because more calories are burnt when producing breast milk. Breast feeding also protects the mother from breast cancer.

Everyone during their childhood is bound to be afraid of something. The dark? The thunder? Insects?

How would you normally handle such a situation? When the lightning strikes, your child runs to you with his hands pressed on hard on his ears, saying “Mommy, I’m scared, mommy…I’m scared…”

Most parents would naturally hug the child and say “Don’t worry its just the thunder. It will not hurt you.”

Then goes another lightning and your boy stays in your arms to get as much security as he could. Are you going to let him stay that way till the rain stops? What if it rains the whole day, wouldn’t you want to get rid of his fear?

First, you must understand that your child is not a coward when he is afraid of something. He is just being unsure of what is going to happen.

Explaining is the cause of his fear, in this case, the thunder, is important. Let him know why there is thunder, why do thunder sound loud?

Then, change his fear to something that all kids love – FUN! I did this tactic on my boys, 4 and 2 years-old. It worked. There were several things they were afraid of at first, but now the feeling of fear against these things are long gone.

Thunder ~ we turned it into an outburst of acting silly. When the thunder came, I started to make funny noises and flap my hands in mid-air. Did it for a few times, the kids started to laugh, then they followed. So now it has become a thunder dance, whenever the lightning flashes, they are up on their feet getting ready for the outburst of energy. And when the thunder really came, my kids would be making funny sounds and swinging their whole body uncontrollably. And when its gone, they sit down and wait patiently for the next one.

Dark ~ we simply get illumine sticks. Lots of them. Allow them to stay in the dark to play with the illumine sticks.Get them to explore the dark with a torch light. Let them know that it can be fun in the dark too. For children who fear the dark, its a lot of reflection on the parents or caretakers. Children by nature are not afraid of dark. The fear is usually due to the misconception that parents give to their child through stories, like “ghost always comes out in the dark”, “there is a monster waiting for you in the dark room”. Beware of what you teach your kids. You may unintentionally introduced fear through your actions and words.

When the parents show that the thing that the kids are afraid of is actually fun, the kids just follows, remember children are natural mimics.

Is your child afraid of something?