Understanding Infant Health

Bringing a child into the world is a huge responsibility. It does not come with a manual unfortunately, and many parents must simply learn as they go. Proper infant health is key to a healthy child throughout the following decade as the most changes they make in their lives developmentally will be during these years.

An infant requires full time care around the clock. They need adequate nutrition as well as adequate help providing them with the essential tools to become a mobile and healthy child. The first step in proper infant health is to ensure they are fulfilling the best diet they can be on. What your child eats even from the infant stages will determine what type of eater they will be as they get older. They must have proper amounts of breast milk or formula to help their bodies grow as well their brains. Their brains need plenty of good nutrition while they are infants to grow. Once the infant has graduated to solid foods from just consuming breast milk or formula, the fun can truly begin. Feeding your child their first spoonfuls of solid food can be a challenge for some parents, but most children enjoy tasting the differences in foods as opposed to just having bottles all day long. They can introduce fruits and vegetables into the infant’s diet and also give them fruit juice made especially for babies as well. Be cautious with the fruit juices as you cannot generally give an infant a bottle of regular fruit juice that an adult or older child would drink. These are simply too acidic for the baby and they require a juice that is watered down or one that is made just for infants.

Along with proper nutrition for babies, immunizations and daily activities are equally important in infant health. It is your choice as the parent to have your child immunized, but do beware if you elect to not have them done your child will run the risk of not being able to be admitted into a public school system. The school do require the children to be immunized just to ensure they are taking the highest regard to not allow certain viruses and severe illnesses to plague the entire school population. These immunizations are to ward off polio, chicken pox and the mumps among others. In addition to those you will need to keep your child active during the day and ensure they are getting ample amounts of sleep each night as well. Children, even infants need to have the time during the day to move around not only to expend energy but to learn as well. They will learn how their bodies move around and learn how to manipulate many other tasks by having the freedom to move around in their homes and outdoors as well. Infants also need a lot of sleep or they will be very cranky during the day and not be able to enjoy all their meals and activities, make sure they are getting at least ten hours of sleep per night to have a healthy and happy baby in the morning.