This post is sponsored by I Vaccinate but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.
It is no surprise that the choices we make as parents towards our children shape the people they become in the future. Parents have a great responsibility in ensuring they make the right choices towards their children. Before becoming a mother, I did not understand how heavily we can impact our children’s lives and their futures. Soon after I gave birth, I quickly realized how important my role was as a mother and how much my decisions could affect my son.
I wanted to make sure that early on I made the right choices when it came to my sons health. Since as a parent, I play an important role in shaping my son’s habits, I wanted to be a good role model by making healthy choices towards myself and our family that he can learn from. I’ve listed five things I do in order to keep my toddler healthy below:
1. Give Vaccinations
Vaccines are one of the top medical practices performed to date because they’ve reduced or even eliminated many diseases and illnesses. They allow your child to be protected against more diseases than ever before. Vaccines are heavily studied over a long period of time and are safe. They are designed to prevent serious or even deadly diseases by working with the body’s natural defenses to help it safely develop immunity to harmful viruses.
I always knew I was going to get my son vaccinated because I wanted to make sure he was safe from any harmful illnesses and had a healthy future ahead of him. Even though vaccinations have prevented many diseases from spreading – these diseases can still come back if not enough people get their vaccines done at the right times. Knowing this, I wanted to protect my baby from a young age and protect those around him. If he didn’t get his vaccinations done and at one point caught a disease that he was not immune to, there would be a chance that he could spread it to others and I would never want my own decisions to be the cause of that.
My son is currently a year and a half old and has received all his vaccinations to date. Our experience with the vaccination process has been great. We spoke with his doctor at each appointment and we were informed about which type of vaccines he was getting done. Once my son got his vaccines, he would cry a little (obviously, ouch needles poke!) He would usually nap right after and wake up not remembering a thing. He never experienced any side effects other than a little red bump around where the vaccine was given. I have full trust in the benefits of the vaccinations and believe the risks associated with them is too low to even be considered (there’s a risk with many other medications that people don’t recognize or even acknowledge!) Vaccinations have saved many lives for many years and I could never imagine putting my son at risk by not getting him vaccinated.
If you want to learn more about Vaccinations, the I Vaccinate website is a great resource for parents. Click here for more information!
2. Provide Nutritional Foods
One of the most important factors in ensuring that a child reaches their optimal development is eating a healthy and nutritious diet. Eating a balanced meal from a young age helps promote both physical and mental growth, enhances brain development, prevents childhood obesity, and can encourage healthy choices in life.
Eating healthy, whole foods has been a priority to me long since before becoming a mother. I always knew I wanted to pass my knowledge on making healthy food choices to my children one day. Right when I became a mother, I chose to breastfeed my son in order to provide him with the best nutritional food in his early days of life. Once he started eating solid foods, I started introducing an array of fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins and grains along with dairy products.
I have made it a priority to provide him with the freshest meals cooked at home in order to encourage him to eat a balanced meal with us on a daily basis. Although he is still young, he is already forming healthy habits when it comes to his meals. He enjoys eating all sorts of fruits and vegetables and isn’t very picky about what we provide him to eat (thankfully!).
I am also very attentive to the labels on store bought food products and examine each product thoroughly. I don’t feed my son foods that contain unhealthy or unknown ingredients. I also purchase food items that are organic and made out of real ingredients with no additives or preservatives. This helps me know exactly what he is putting in his body and will hopefully encourage him to do the same in the future.
3. Encourage Exercise Daily
Exercise promotes healthy growth and development in children starting from a young age. It is crucial that parents start teaching their children the importance of exercise early on. Making sure children are active early in life can help prevent potential conditions from developing and help children stay positive and energetic. Exercise for children isn’t the same as it is for adults, though. Many of us in our adult years have to plan out exercise, and either go to a gym or set aside time. For children, much of their exercise is an organic part of daily life. They play at recess, they play outside after school and they take part in all sorts of physical activities, from sports to dance and more. It is more likely that children will continue exercising in their adult lives if they have formed these habits early on.
Since I know how important exercise is for my son’s health, I make sure that he gets enough physical activity during the day. I try to take my son outside everyday in order for him to walk and run around and to stay active. If we are unable to go outside due to the weather conditions, I take him out to somewhere indoors where he can move freely (such as the hands on museum or local library). On the days we’re not able to leave the house at all, we make sure to get in our exercise by dancing or playing tag in our basement (were fortunate that we have a space big enough to allow us to move around and get our hearts pumping.)
4. Encourage Pretend Play
Young children learn by imagining and doing. Have you ever watched your child pick up a stone and pretend it is a zooming car, or hop a Lego across the table as if it were a person or a bunny? Your child is using an object to represent something else while giving it action and motion. But this pretend play is not as simple as it may seem. The process of pretending builds skills in many essential developmental areas such as social and emotional skills, language skills, and thinking skills.
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As my son has been getting older, I’ve noticed a great change in the way he plays. He imitates us a lot more and uses his imagination while playing. Since imaginative play is a healthy way to learn new skills, I make sure to encourage it by engaging in the pretend play with him or introducing him to older kids that will play with him the same way.
Some of our pretend games include cooking in our pots and pans and serving “pretend” food to each other. We also put up a little tent built by our couch cushions and pretend we’re hiding in it from “monsters”. He’s also had an imaginative tea party with his cousins that he enjoyed – he kept sipping out of his cup like there was tea actually in it – it was the cutest thing!
5. Allow Enough Time To Rest
Babies and toddlers take naps during the day in order to rest and regain their energy. Since crucial physical and mental development occur during early childhood, naps help provide time for growth and rejuvenation. Their sleep is as important as nutrition and physical activity and directly impacts their overall development.
Since my son was born, I have changed my schedule to work around his naps and bedtime. Knowing how important sleep is for his physical and mental development, I wanted to make sure that nothing interfered with his sleep and that he was able to rest for as long as he needed. I made sure I never woke him up from a nap and tried to put him to bed right when I could tell he was tired. If he happened to sleep in the car while I was out, I would park and wait in the car until he woke up (luckily, my schedule was flexible enough to allow me to do this!)
These are the ways I am trying to currently keep my son healthy. As he grows, I will make sure to encourage him to make healthy choices for himself. With all that being said, make sure to enjoy every minute with your little ones because they sure do grow up quickly!