Miami Milestone Guide: A Month-by-Month Look at Your Child's Development
Finding a good healthcare provider who pays attention to all aspects of your child’s life, including physical, spiritual, and emotional, is hard. A holistic doctor helps explain why holistic development is important and assesses your child's physical, emotional, and spiritual state to recommend the right course of action. Finding concierge care is important, so you will get direct and personalized care. But first, let's understand why holistic child care is important.
Read more to find out why holistic child development is important, discover integrative nutrition for your child, and learn about the role of nature in child development.
Understanding Holistic Child Development: The importance of nurturing physical, emotional, and spiritual growth
Holistic child development has gained significant traction in recent years. It is an approach that focuses on physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Holistic development recognizes the interdependence of the physical, emotional, and spiritual states and their role in a child's growth. It is a model that focuses on the root causes of these problems, creating a sense of wholeness.
Disregarding holistic healthcare to children in the first five years of their lives can cause devastating effects that can last a lifetime. These effects include affected physical and mental health as adults, reduced school readiness and learning potential, increased susceptibility to stress, and decreased ability to deal with stress effectively.
The first three years of a child's life are important because that's when 90% of their brains develop. As a result, children absorb so much information from their environment and experiences. Consequently, these experiences and the environment contribute to the child's future well-being, growth, survival, and health. A child's emotional development is also important because it determines their future relations, confidence, communication, mental health, and community inclusion.
Failing to provide holistic healthcare prevents many children from achieving their full potential. For example, in Pakistan, a study showed that children who lacked sensory stimulation were more susceptible to delayed psychomotor development, stunting, and low weight. Therefore, caregivers should strive to remove stressors such as unstable caregiving, bad nutrition, stress, and environmental toxins, as well as increase sensory stimulation for children to develop holistically.
Integrative Nutrition for Every Stage: Tailoring your child’s diet to support optimal development.
Integrative nutrition considers non-nutritional components, such as social life, relationships, and environment, to make decisions on your diet and health. The body's nutritional requirements change as we move through different stages. Here are our recommendations for integrative nutrition for every stage of your child's life.
Birth to 6 months
Within the first 6 months of the baby's development, breastmilk is enough to provide the fluids, energy, and nutrients that the baby requires. If possible, avoid infant formula as it lacks the necessary immunological and protective qualities contained in breast milk. Breast Milk also provides the needed water to replace lost fluids. At this point, you should not introduce solid foods or give your child juice.
6- 12 months
After 6 months, your baby's development and nutrition are increasing; therefore, this is when we introduce solid foods. We advise you to complement these solid foods with breastmilk up to when the baby is 12 months or more.
As you wean your baby off breast milk, the child might develop iron deficiency. Foods that you can give your baby at this stage include vegetables and fruits, whole eggs, meat, poultry, or fish. Experts advise that the first solid foods to be introduced to a child should be iron-enriched rice-based cereals as they are less likely to cause an allergic reaction. Additionally, you should introduce new foods after 3-4 days to be able to point out sensitivity and allergies.
Food for young children 1- 12 years
As young children are usually picky eaters, we recommend you try a variety of foods. The child's nutritional requirements increase with age. Here are our recommendations for young children's nutrition;
Maintain the child's weight by reducing nutrient-poor foods, calories, and fat intake. You can also cut your child's weight by increasing their physical activity
Ensure they get their macronutrients, that is, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins, due to the fast growth rate
Ensure they drink enough water or fluids
The Role of Nature in Child Development: Encouraging outdoor play and interaction with the environment. Children running amid nature, interacting with insects, animals, plants and the climate is an integral part of child development. Let's look at the benefits of nature on the physical aspect of a child;
Playing in nature can help maintain a healthy body weight. In the US, obesity is becoming a menace. Therefore, playing in nature can help lower body weight and maintain BMI.
Spending time outside can help develop motor skills and increase coordination and body balance. It also helps increase strength while improving the immune system by building resilience
Mental development
It can help improve communication due to the interaction when playing
It speeds up brain development in certain aspects, such as problem-solving, self-dependency, imagination, and decision-making skills
It is a learning opportunity, especially if you buy your children STEM toys such as compasses, magnifying lenses, and magnets. It gives children a chance to learn about the world around them
Emotional development
It plays a vital role in sensory development because they use all five senses. That makes them feel things and appreciate the environment around them
Playing outside builds confidence and self-esteem. Nature is in a constant state of flux, which gives a child a chance for problem-solving and decision-making, therefore building confidence
Spiritual development
According to a study published in the Journal of Study of Religion, children who interacted with nature understood their connection to the earth and knew of their role in protecting it
Children who play outside have a stronger sense of spirituality than those glued to their screens. The New Michigan State University found a link between how children define spirituality and their interaction with nature
Conclusion
Here at Ahimsa MD - Integrative Holistic Primary Care Doctor in Miami, we are providers of pediatric holistic care. Our doctors are experts at providing primary care and holistic style pediatric care to those seeking integrative methods of healing the body. Our concierge care is designed to bring you comfort by providing open communication with the doctor. Our main goal is to heal the mind and body by promoting spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being through traditional medicine.
If other methods are not working for you, visit us at Ahimsa MD - Integrative Holistic Primary Care Doctor in Miami. We guarantee you will feel and look better in no time!
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