Are you smarter than your pediatrician? Some of us may think we are. In fact, sometimes our gut tells us we are (and our gut can sometimes be right). However, sometimes our pediatrician is VERY right.
Test your knowledge at U.S. News and World Report by taking a 20 question quiz. The situations/questions stumped even the experts.
I got a 14/20. What will you get?

My son, AJ, takes his lunch to all day kindergarten everyday. He also takes two snacks and a drink. So, my job as a parent is to make sure that my home-made lunch is just what he needs to get him through the entire day, provide him with energy, help him concentration, and give him enough protein and natural sugars to prevent a hypoglycemic attack, which can easily happen with him.
So, what do I provide him?
1. One fresh fruit, either a peeled pear or apple (he has a salicylate intolerance and can not tolerate the peels although they provide the …read more

I will readily admit that I have never dealt with infant sleep but I have had my fair share of two-year old tummy aches, separation anxiety, and sleep trauma, and even neurological sleep issues.
In fact, our son, now takes sleep medication every night to help him get to sleep and stay asleep. Not every child has such extreme sleep issues as him but many children have sleep problems that can be avoided if taught from early on.
DO:

Make bedtime special time for cozy interaction. However, be firm about the time and place for bed.
Take notice of when your child gets sleepy …read more

A recent study at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln indicates that children who eat low fat or nonfat products are missing essential vitamins like vitamin E and vitamin C.
“Parents are eating a lot of lowfat and nonfat products, and we’re finding they also give their children such things as skim milk,” Driskell said. “The lowfat diet is probably associated with their being low in vitamin E.”
Their findings were that children’s blood values were low but not low enough to have deficiency symptoms. They were only at the point at which children needed to be treated with vitamins or food.
Parents stated that …read more

At Hidden Valley, Jodie Shield, a registered dietitian, helps kids all around the country eat their veggies. Jodie has been a a consultant and a spokesperson for more than two decades. She is a former national media spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and has worked with the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.
She is currently a complemental faculty member of the College of Health Sciences in the Department of Clinical Nutritian at Rush Univesity in Chicago.
As parents, you know how tough that can be, right? Here are twelve tips from Jodie to help you out you with a …read more

Bottom Line: Not if they eat right.
One third of kids in the U.S. take vitamins and most take a vitamin that contains vitamin C, calcium or iron but most take a multivitamin. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend a daily multivitamin for children.
There is currently no research that shows that vitamins make you healthier or live longer.
CNN

I was talking to several moms in our special needs group the other day describing what services we were getting from our school and from outside services. We are getting nothing, BTW.
In school AJ gets Speech and Occupational Therapy because he has communication processing disorders, both verbal and non verbal and he has Sensory Processing Disorder. However, we recently had an evaluation completed with a neuro-psychologist who indicates that AJ also has visual processing disorders, auditory processing disorders, and ADHD mixed type.
Now, back when AJ was 2 we had an Early Intervention coordinator do an evaluation on him as well. …read more

Purchasing gifts is always a struggle for us because AJ is interested in “Big Boy” toys but developmentally has a difficult time handling them. We tell this to friends and relatives but all they see is his age, not his developmental age. So, many toys go unused and get stored in the attic until they can be used.
If you are searching for that perfect gift…watch this:

Raising children today who are conscious of others can be difficult. I know this first hand because my son can be quite self-centered. I don’t know if it is part of his disability or part of his personality. Or, it simply could be that we have not been focusing on teaching him to look past himself and recognize others. I don’t think it is the later because we have always placed an emphasis on sharing, giving, and helping.
There was an article in the December edition of Reader’s Digest that focused on this topic…raising children who care. In the …read more

The latest news on Vitamin D is that kids need more. The previous recommendation (from 2003) from the American Academy of Pediatrics was 200 IU of vitamin D daily. Now they are saying that kids need 400 IU’s.
Dr. Frank Greer states that this could have life-long benefits.
Vitamin D helps build strong bones and prevents rickets (a common disease in developing countries and in institutionalized children like my son who was very borderline). Although rickets is uncommon in the US a recent study estimated that 40% of US infants and toddlers are deficient in Vitamin D.
The recommendation is for infants to …read more