Category Archives: Feeding

Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)

Child Nutrition (5 Years and Up)

So back in my public health days, I worked for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s department of Child and Adolescent Health. Much of my work was dedicated to creating an educational program that supported healthy diets and physical activity of pre-school and school-aged children. I spent hundreds of hours designing a program and performing bill analyses that were written to improve overweight and obesity in the LA Unified School District. So, for a portion of my early adulthood, this topic was my jam.

The diet of a 5-year old (and up) is very similar to what our diets, as adults, should resemble: healthy and lean meats, half of the plate consisting of a variety of brightly colored fruits and vegetables, whole grains (not refined white flour that has been stripped of its healthy fiber), etc. It’s hard enough for us to follow, but it is of paramount importance for us to get our kids off on the right foot in these early years.

If you missed previous Nutrition in a Nutshell posts, click the links below

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Infancy

Nutrition in a Nutshell For Your Sprout: Toddler & Pre-schooler

So, what should be the focus for these (still) growing sprouts? Here’s a summary:^1-9 Continue reading “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Children (5 Years+)” »

Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Toddler & Preschooler

This Week’s Sproutings Saturday is featuring nutrition pointers and guidelines for Toddlers and Preschoolers. If you missed “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Infancy,” be sure to check it out!

Quick Clicks:

1 Year Old

2 Year Old

3 Year Old

General Pre-School/Toddler Nutrition Guidelines (2-5 Years) Includes calorie requirements for each age

Iron-Deficiency Anemia in Toddlers

Toddler Nutrition (1 Year Old) Continue reading “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Toddler & Preschooler” »

Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Infancy

Sorry for the delay in posting this week, I caught a legit real cold for the first time in about 2.5 years and luckily it came on a Friday, which meant Jeff was able to let me off the hook for baby duties. However, this also meant that I wasn’t going to be able to publish a Sproutings Saturday post. The sinus pressure was way too uncomfortable (along with feeling like my head was unattached from my body) for me to write a real post and it wasn’t nearly at the point where I was comfortable publishing it.

(Quick Jump Links)

Part 2: Nutrition in a Nutshell – Toddler and Pre-Schooler

Part 3: Nutrition in a Nutshell – Children 5 years and Older

About this Post

As a little intro, I wanted to write this post because 1) it was a topic that a couple of my readers suggested, and 2) it really makes me cringe to read all of the bad advice some moms give to other moms on the topic of infant nutrition. I feel like I can justifiably say that this is “bad advice,” because I got my Bachelor’s in Science in Dietetics (nutrition, to the rest of the population) and focused a lot of my undergraduate projects on Maternal, Infant, and Child Nutrition (heck, I even chose my Master’s focus on Maternal and Child Nutrition when I started at UCLA). I’m not saying that I remember everything I learned in college about every phase of infant and child nutrition, but it’s the basis from which I stem off and do my own investigating and writing.

This series of posts will be divided into: Infancy, Toddler & Pre-School Age, and Child Nutrition 5 & Up because: 1) It’ll take me a substantial amount of time to cover nutrition for infancy through 5 and up – there is an overwhelming amount of information on nutrition for each group; and 2) It’ll be easier for you guys to click to whichever post is more relevant for you when you read it. Continue reading “Nutrition in a Nutshell for Your Sprout: Infancy” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Mommy’s Little Love Pug

So, not a lot to talk about this past week, really, but here’s a recap:

Bounces up and down on her crib mattress. She’ll actually do this if I say “Bouncy Bouncy!” She’ll look at me with a huge smile on her face and start bouncing. This is probably not a great idea to encourage her to do this, but for now I’ll go with it.
“Daddy” is coming along much clearer. She used to just say “Dada” but she’s now making the “E” sound at the end!
Pets the doggies REALLY nicely now. Pats them softly on the head only OCCASIONALLY pulling their fur. Such nice, patient little doggies we have.
We are BACK TO EATING BROCCOLI CHEDDAR BITES! Yay!!! She ate 2 whole bites one morning for breakfast (used to only eat part of one a long time ago, after I baked them originally)!
Chows down on yogurt + cinnamon. She’s also up to downing an entire (completely peeled) mandarin orange at breakfast and really loves popping plain simmered peas and sweet corn kernels (no seasonings or anything).
She’ll now eat the Happy Baby Rice Cakes that I got her a few weeks ago, too. I think eating crunchy wafers (like those Happy Baby Teething Wafers) and the rice cakes have gotten her more accustomed to the texture, so eating the Broccoli-Cheddar bites wasn’t as unfamiliar.
Plays tug of war with Mei Mei as she holds onto her rope toy
She picks out her books to read for story time. I usually default to “Won’t You Be My Hugaroo” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” for our pre-nap story, but lately she has been pointing to other books for me to read instead. Like, today she pointed and reached for “Count My Kisses, Little One” because she didn’t want me to read the Caterpillar.
She discovered a baggie full of pacifiers that she never liked. Now she’s found minutes and minutes of happiness rifling through them and try them all out, spitting each one out trying a new one out, spit it out, repeat. She gave one to Mei Mei and Mei Mei actually liked it and kept it in her mouth haha… Yes yes, we washed it off.
Here’s looking at you, Daddy! When daddy winks at her from across the breakfast table, Jia does her version of winking back. It’s just the cutest thing ever, she scrunches up her nose and squints both of her eyes. I’ll have to try to catch that on camera somehow.

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Mommy’s Little Love Pug” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: “Little Toddles”

“Little Toddles.” That’s Jeff’s new nickname for Jia, along with “Boogie-Boo” because she is always dancing or boogying. 🙂

Says “Up” when she goes up the stairs and when she is standing up after a diaper change on the table, mimicking the word “diaper” pretty well, too.
Says “Shoes” uh oh, this could be a problem haha… Saying “Mei-Mei” is getting better. When she sees Mei Mei enter the room, she actually says her name.
She excitedly digs into her toy box and can spend a while just sifting through it.
Can feed her Chomp and Count Dino toy (can’t quite push the food far enough into his mouth to the point where he recognizes the food, but she understands where the Dino’s mouth is and tries to feed him)
Free stands for longer lengths of time while holding something, does this more frequently nowadays. If she doesn’t realize you’re not holding onto her she stands for a decent length of time.
Throws tantrums and pieces of food when she gets frustrated.
She’s VERY vocal, I love hearing her voice. She vocalizes all the time, especially when she reaches to try to get something, it’s like she’s talking her way through it. It’s so endearing, I love it.
Points meaningfully at items that she wants. For example, when she’s eating she points to her sip cup because she’s thirsty.
Loves pears (this is good, because even if she loved a bunch of vegetables, meat, and all sorts of fruit when it was pureed, if you’ve been keeping up with these WSDW posts, you’ll know that it’s a gamble on what she wants now), ZUCCHINI (I chopped into small pieces, put on the stove in a pan with olive oil, sprinkled with thyme and cinnamon… it worked. And it was better-received when it had been refrigerated!), and (de-skinned) mandarin oranges but *sigh* she may be tired of deli turkey! What now?! That was my old faithful backup meal that I knew she would take. Well that was a good three week run.
Her feet are ticklish! So cute watching her smile and pull back her feet when I tickle her. She’s especially ticklish in the bathtub haha!

Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: “Little Toddles”” »

What’s She Doing Wednesday: Busy Bee

Oh boy, I remember when I thought having a newborn was tiring, then it got busier. Then I thought having a 5 month old was tiring, with her eating solids and moving around some. Fast forward to now and she’s crawling super fast, and before I know it, her hands are splashing water in the dog’s water bowl!

Here’s what she has been up to:

Loves closing doors, even if it hits her in the face as she closes it. Thankfully not quite reaching the doorknob yet.
The dog’s food bowls are great cymbals to bang together to make very loud music and now so are the 6″ baking pans I bought for her birthday cake.
My singing “Locked out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars keeps her entertained during diaper changes (some of the time). “Oh yea yea! Oh yea yea yea yea…!” and she tries to mimic me, haha.
She loves smoked gouda cheese!
Scrambled egg yolk with whole milk yogurt and a tiny sprinkle of cheese is our new breakfast! She loves scrambled egg yolk! (I’m staying away from egg white just in case of an allergic reaction)
YES to Trader Joe’s Chicken Chardonnay Apple Sausage boiled, then cooled in the fridge was a success two days in a row! Whew.
Other than that, we still only like deli turkey.
Loves cooked sweet peas and corn, thankfully, since she doesn’t eat my fun sautéed veggies in herbs and spices, haha..
Does not like any yummy creative pancakes or snacks that I’ve made now, like those yummy zucchini spinach and apple pancakes or broccoli cheddar bites. Sigh.
Loves Happy Baby Teething Wafers! We tried Plum Organics teething crackers but the texture isn’t as preferable. Loves her purple carrot and blueberry wafers, though. I’ll have to try peanut butter on these wafers because she doesn’t like PB on crackers or toast.
Definitely doing only 1 nap per day, still sleeping 11 or 12 hours through the night. (Visit this post here for sleep training tips) She’s completely happy to be awake and playing up until about 6:15ish, so I think we are in her 1 nap routine.
We have to either take the pugs outside while Jia eats or put them behind the baby gates away from the kitchen, because generous little Jia wants to share her food as soon as she sees hungry looking faces look up at her from her high-chair.
She’s much better at playing independently, now that she is a crawling expert. Basically the entire room is full of entertainment and mischief, so now I can actually run upstairs to the bathroom, go downstairs and throw a load of laundry in the washer and dryer, pack up for an outing, etc. while she happily plays and explores. It warms my heart instantly, though, when I see she misses me and speed-crawls over to me so I can pick her up for nuzzles and cuddles. Mmmm…
She can flub her lips. You know, when you take your index finger and you move it up and down across your lips and you can make funny noises that go, “blublublublub” She gets a kick out of this now.
She knows how to sniff something. I would take her feet, sniff them and go “pew!” and she would laugh. Now, she leans forward and curiously sniffs whatever I put in front of her face. This may or not be my toes.

By the way, I can’t believe there are this many things to write in just a 7 day span since the last post!

Mom thoughts: Continue reading “What’s She Doing Wednesday: Busy Bee” »

Sleep Training Part 1: Weaning from Night Feedings

“Awww, how cute. Is she sleeping through the night?” Seems like I got this question 1 out of every 3 strangers we met. For me, I didn’t mind it too much. That’s because when she was little, she wasn’t expected to (not yet) and when she was older, she slept for about 5 hours at a time so I wasn’t complaining. However, it doesn’t help me from feeling like I’m jinxing ourselves for that night. If you’re a new parent, I’m sure you have gotten this question a fair number of times.

This post is mostly for new parents who have heard about “sleep training,” but don’t know the details, parents who are having restless nights, those sleeping in few-hour increments, those who have babies who cry a lot when put to bed, and those who are anticipating the need to sleep train to get those delicious-sounding 12-hour stretches with baby sleeping soundly.

If you’ve already weaned from night feedings and need to know the next step, or have already read this post, read Part 2: Sleeping Through the Night.

So what’s “Sleep Training”? Continue reading “Sleep Training Part 1: Weaning from Night Feedings” »