As you probably can understand, children's health, particularly MY 14 month old's health has been on my mind a lot lately. He got pretty sick recently and you can read all about it if you click on "Benjamin" on the right side of my blog. I am thankful to say that he is doing better and took his last dose of meds tonight to counter the drug withdrawl he experienced in the hospital. He is getting stronger each day and we are very thankful.
So because this topic is on my mind, I thought I would get back into my regular blogging on health topics by sharing a few wonderful and natural products that I use with my own kids. As parents, we truly want the best for our kids. I never fully understood that until I actually became a mom 3 years ago. We are constantly worrying about our children's well being and health and doing our best to keep them well and healthy.
One thing that our pediatrician suggested when my boys were infants was to supplement their diet with a good vitamin formulated specifically for children. Something to "fill in the gaps" in their sometimes (or lately with my 3 year old, ALL the time picky eating habits:). Up until very recently, both of my boys have been very healthy. Even when Benjamin developed his sudden cough last month, the doctor thought that he aspirated something into his lung rather then it be the bad pneumonia that he had, because he didn't have any other symptoms. No fever, no runny nose, etc. His body was fighting it hard, which is why the doctors, including the specialists at Riley, didn't think pneumonia until they went in to find the aspirated object but instead found the mucus.
Hind sight is 20/20 as they say. Before last month, my 14 month old took a whole food natural powder vitamin
Shakleebaby Multivitamin and Multimineral.
Both of my kids took this early on every day. It is easy to mix into their oatmeal or most liquids that they drink. I am sorry to say that last month I had forgotten to order it with my monthly Shaklee order and we ran out. I didn't think too much of it because we had another powder vitamin in the house called
Citriboost. This is another great whole food multivitamin that Shaklee makes that is complete and safe for many people including adults and kids over the age of 1. My son was able to take half a scoop of this a day mixed into his oatmeal or drink. This is a great alternative for people who have a hard time swallowing vitamins and since my son was over a year old, I knew that he could have this so I didn't worry about ordering more of his children's vitamins right away. What I realized now however, is that the Citriboost was not as complete for his young needs as the Multivitamin and Multimineral powder is. Like I said, hindsight is definitely 20/20 and if I could do it over again....
Once my 3 year old was able to chew well, we switched him to
Shaklee's Incredivites.
These are chewable and are an assortment of berry flavors that my son loves. Because he is under the age of 4, he only takes one a day which makes the bottle last for 4 months! This also has lactoferrin in it, which is the immune booster found in breast milk. My son still gets colds once in awhile, and a few more since starting preschool this year, but they usually come and go fairly quickly. And neither boy has ever had an ear infection!
When either of my boys are fighting something, we also give them
chewable Vitamin C.
There is some research out there supporting vitamin C helping with immune function. One of Shaklee's chewable vitamin C is equivalent to eating 1.5 organic oranges. My older son can chew these and we crush them and put them into food or drink for my 14 month old. One of the doctors at Riley childrens hospital was talking to me about the research supporting vitamin C as an immune booster and infection fighter when Benjamin was there. They were supportive of us bringing our Shaklee supplements and
protein powder in to give him in the hospital, which we were very thankful for.
One of my other favorite products that we use with our kids is
Shakleebaby Gentle wash.
All of Shaklee's products are completely safe, natural and work really well. Shaklee uses pharmaceutical standards and third party testing on all of their products to make sure they are the highest quality and purest ingredients. So I never worry about the safety of products like the baby wash on my kids young skin. I was surprised to learn that the leading brand of baby wash (that we used to use!) actually has
formaldehyde in it that is a bi-product of some of its ingredients. It is a small amount and not enough for them to legally have to put it on the label apparently, but Hel-LO-o! Do I really want my kids bathing in that chemical no matter how small of an amount?? Nope and I am thinking you may feel the same. One thing I love about Shaklee's wash is that it is so concentrated (like most of their products) so a little goes a long way. Very gentle, natural and safe. We really love it in my house.
One last thing I should mention is
Laundry products. This is one area that it seems some parents overlook when thinking about their kids health, esp. young kids. Kids, especially babies, spend a lot of time sleeping.
They are breathing in anything coming off of the bedding and a lot of detergents with dyes and perfumes that make them smell nice, also leach chemicals. Not too good for young lungs and skin. I really love all of Shaklee's laundry products for my entire family, including sensitive-skin ME! lol
Shaklee's detergents are great for all skin types and they are very concentrated so a little goes a very long way. We switched to cloth diapers earlier this year (I wish I would have started with them with my oldest son - they are so great) I have heard so many conflicting reports on what detergent to use with cloth diapers. The only one that I have ever used is Shaklee (both liquid and powder) and both work great at cleaning my son's diapers. I will never use anything else.
As parents, we only want the best for our kids no matter how old they are. I truly feel that using the products I mentioned above are good choices for my kid's health.
Thank you again for reading. If you enjoy reading my blog, you can subscribe to it above so you will always know when I put a new post up. Have a great and healthy weekend! :)
Rebecca
Things have been very busy lately. When Benjamin got sick in September, it really made us re-evaluate priorities. Because of that, I haven't been blogging as much. I did try to get some pictures up last week but the computer wasn't cooperating so I decided to put it aside until now.
Andrew and I enjoyed making pumpkin pies this year. They taste so much better then the ones we've had from a can pumpkin. Would highly recommend. And this group tasted better then our first attempt because we didn't forget any ingredients this time! lol
Yum! We still have some in the fridge and also in the freezer ready for Thanksgiving.
Our trees turn such beautiful colors this time of year. The red one is my favorite. We think it's an oak or ash tree. Does anyone know what they are?
Here are some more recent pictures of the boys...
The boys are so cute in their jammies
Thanks for reading! I hope you had a safe and good Halloween. I can't believe it's November already and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. We have so much to be thankful for.
