It’s your first child and you want to raise him or her to be the best they can be and you know that it all starts when they’re small. That’s why you need to let them eat the right food, play with the right toys and experience things to expand their horizons. We know it’s a confusing time and that’s why we’re here to help. So take a deep breath, realize that you can’t control everything but you can prepare yourself to deal with most problems.
The right food
When you’re growing up you need the right nutrients to grow into a strong and healthy man or woman. Your child will be moving from liquid foods to solids and will want to experiment with everything he can fit in his mouth. One of the important diets for a toddler is milk, this important diet strengthens bones and they should drink whole milk to get the full potential of this essential ingredient to their bodies. Don’t feed them too much milk as you want to give them a balanced diet.
Iron is very important for a toddler’s growth and a deficiency may cause unbalanced mental, physical and behavioural development.
Healthy iron foods are:
- Beef or Chicken Liver
- Lamb
- Beef
- Pork
- Egg
- Chicken
Whole grain bread, vegetables and fruits and other naturally healthy foods should be added to your toddler’s diet.
The right toys
You should get the right toys for your toddler as each toy trains and enhances different parts of your child’s body and brain. Toys can enhance your child’s hand eye co-ordination, reflexes, perception, balance and more. It’s very important that children play so that they can fully test out and practice all their motor and mental skills.
The right social life
Many children are kept at home because their parents cannot afford to take them to day-care centres. If you can’t afford a day-care center then you should organize play dates so that your child can become socially adept when interacting with others. Giving them the opportunity to play at an early age makes it easier for them to connect and interact with people and strangers.
Let them enjoy life
Lastly but most importantly you should give your child free reign (in a safe environment of course) to enjoy and experiment everything around him. If he wants to eat sand then let him, it’s a learning curve and they need to associate different objects with taste, touch and sight. Remember you might know everything but to them everything is brand new and
Ruan Smit enjoys researching, writing and playing with his children, find the right toy shops is essential to him.
