INFANT AND CHILD
Infants and Children should be fed very differently than a Teen or Adult, yet similar to an Elderly person.
If at all possible an infant should be breast fed for the first 6 months. There is NOTHING that compares to breast milk! This will save you and your child much grief in the long hall.
Why? Because breast milk is specific for human babies and breast-fed infants as a rule are healthier and thus get sick less often than formula-fed infants.
Breast feeding will help your child stay out of the antibiotic trap of which I see all the time in my practice. If you child is put on antibiotics to often the cycle of colds and ear and respiratory infections can continue for many months and sometimes years. This ultimately damages the “digestive and immune system” and can create "allergies" and chronic respiratory infections year after year.
This can also occur from excess or incorrectly prescribed herbs over a long period of time, which eventually damages the “spleen qi” and promote the production of excessive mucus/phlegm in the respiratory system while decreasing their production of “postnatal qi”.
Infants are immature energetically, especially the digestive system, they tend to have excess yang qi and run on the hot side. Because of this they tend to have:
a) heat disorders such as fevers, rashes and dry coughs,
b) excess mucus/phlegm disorders such as sinus, lung and ear infections,
c) combinations of the above such as a cold with thick green mucus, fever with a rash that comes and goes.
Now lets talk about breast milk again: The milk in the first few days is called colostrum which is mostly protein and antibodies and low in fat and sugar. It also helps the infant have its first few bowel movements. Breast milk is extremely easy to digest, thus the frequent feedings, and breast milk changes from day to day and even from feeding to feeding, so as you child grows the breast milk will change to nourish you child's growth and development at that time in his/her life. Even the milk at the beginning of feeding and the milk at the end of feeding, called hindmilk can be markedly different.
Breast milk will last about 8 hours at room temperature and can be refrigerated for 5-7 days.
What you want to get out of this is that the healthier you are the healthier you breast milk is, and if you can do this for the 1st 6 months your child will have a great start in life and you will have a happy healthy child.
From 6 to 12 months you can use a mixture of organic almond and rice milk (again breast milk is the best even if it’s in conjunction with bottle feedings) and start feeding them solids consisting of quinoa, millet, or rice porridge, with the addition of 1 or 2 starchy vegetables at a time or just a starchy vegetable like sweet potato or squash without the grain. When you introduce anything new, give it to them for a few days to see how they react to it.
Why porridge? Because infants don't chew their food so it should be "chewed" for them by cooking their food soft or chopping and grinding beforehand. This is done with LOW heat, not quickly done on high heat, which destroys more of the nutrients in the food.
Once breast or formula feeding stops the young child's diet should containing easy to digest, warming foods such as cooked vegetables, well-cooked grain (rice, millet, quinoa, amaranth, etc), with small amounts properly prepared bean/legumes and then small amounts of animal protein such as fish, poultry, beef and their broths. All animal protein should be wild or organic, free range and grass fed if it's a grazing animal. Beans should be soaked for 24 hours and cooked till very soft, again with low heat over a longer period of time, and skim the starch of when cooking them.
Young children should not be fed to much food at one time and not allowed to graze all day long. There should be a general schedule or set time for eating and in the most peaceful environment at possible. If they are not that hungry at the feeding time don't force it they will be hungry later on.
Excessive fruit, wheat, corn and most dairy products (especially cows milk unless it's organic grass fed and raw) tend to create mucus and phlegm. Raw foods and cold drinks from the refrigerator are too cooling for their young digestive fire and only give small amounts of fruit. Serve foods warm or as close to body temperature as possible, this included beverages (mostly water).
When they leave this Infant/Toddler stage and become “Children” their eating styles start to change.
Brushing Teeth: Use a toothpaste without Fluoride or better yet make you own with baking soda mixed with xylitol* or stevia, one drop of organic peppermint or anise essential oil, then add 3% hydrogen peroxide (for home use) to make a paste.
You could also use Virgin coconut oil as a base.
*Caution: Xylitol could be toxic to your dog, so if you have dogs and little kids this may not be the sweetener for you so use stevia instead. I have not read anything about cats though?
The selection of foods should be gradually expanded to as many different vegetable, fruits, grains, beans, fish, as possible, including chicken, turkey and red meat in small amounts. The greater the exposure the better because many children have periods of time that they tend to reduce their selection of foods, sometimes to a single favorite food if they don’t have this initial exposure to many foods. A lot of this depends on the parent. If they eat a restricted diet and don’t try different foods in front of their child with a positive outcome the child will usually be more restrictive then they are and this creates great frustration for the parents and sub-nourishment for the child’s growth and development both mental and physical.
A natural "fussy" time period for eating smaller quantities is from 2-4 years of age for most kids. Their growth at this time can be minimal, so their appetite will match.
The child will tend to be more moody, get frustrated easily, poor appetite for good foods, tend to crave starches and sugars, can be constipated or have loose stool, and could be lethargic or even hyper, especially in the evening, with poor quality sleep (they are hard to get up and grumpy).
They tend to get sick more often or don’t get completely well for weeks or more after a cold or flu, which should only last from 3 to 10 days on average.
Their recuperative (adaptive) powers have decreased and their school and social activities suffer and they become harder to get along with, especially with people that are close to them because they can let their true self be expressed more easily than with other people (although some kids freely express themselves wherever and whenever they want). And when they get really tired their ability to cope with others and the environment around them decreases even more, all the while you could think that “nothing is wrong, and that they have no reason for this kind of behavior”, when in reality they are run down and coping the best they can with the limited energy they have.
They don’t have to get “sick” to be sick. Just like when we don’t get enough sleep or miss a meal, have a bad day at home or the office when nothing goes right. These things drain our energy and we can can be aware of this yet the child is not!
I have had many parents bring their child in saying “the doctor can find nothing wrong” yet upon examination and testing I find them completely drained and running on what we call “false energy”. This tends to manifest as the hyper child with great spurts of energy with low times during the day and then they seem to have so much uncontrollable energy at night that it's hard to fall asleep or they have very restless sleep. Then in the morning it's hard to get them out of bed, their grumpy and irritable and don’t have a good appetite, yet once they get going and playing with friends etc, they look and act OK. These are all “sighs” that “something” is wrong!
Use has many Non-Toxic household cleaners as possible.
There are many “recipes” out there for All-Purpose Cleaners, Dishwasher Soap, Bathroom mold, Window Cleaner, Rust Remover, Crayon, pencil and ink remover, Tub and Tile Cleaner, Scouring Powder, Floor Cleaners and Polish, Carpet Stains, and more, so do your research and give it a try.
Below is a list of the most common ingredients for making your non-toxic household cleaners.
Baking Soda - cleans, deodorizes, softens water, as a past to scour.
Soap - unscented pure soap, preferably in liquid form to mix with other ingredients if needed, but also come in flakes, powders or bars, it's biodegradable and will clean just about anything. Avoid using soaps which contain petroleum distillates. A good example, Murphy's Oil Soap is made entirely from vegetable oils.
Lemon - one of the strongest food-acids, effective against most household bacteria.
Borax - (sodium borate) cleans, deodorizes, disinfects, softens water, cleans wallpaper, painted walls and floors.
White Vinegar – the all-purpose cleaner, cuts grease, mildew, and odors, some stains and wax build-up.
Jojoba – furniture polish
100 proof Alcohol - is an excellent disinfectant.
Cornstarch - can be used to clean windows, polish furniture, shampoo carpets and rugs.
Tea Tree Oil – anti-fungal, viral and bacterial.
Lemon Juice – dissolves soap scum and hard water deposits, or with salt to get rid of rust.
And finally, children need to explore and be encouraged to be as creative as possible during this phase of their life and yet have firm guidelines to follow. Such as eating good nourishing foods, sleeping at regular times and getting enough sleep, teaching respect and politeness to others, respect themselves, the world they live in, and that giving is the complement to receiving. We need to be as unbiased as possible during this time of their life because they need to develop open mindedness and express themselves in a healthy way before society or their peers suppress it.
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