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Now that my son is officially a toddler, I found myself wondering what will provide my toddler the proper important nutrition that will help with his brain development?
Use Enfagrow® Toddler Next Step™ to help your toddler 1 to 3 years old grow and develop during their first few years of life.
I spent the first 9 months of my son’s life breastfeeding. I tried to keep the breastfeeding thing going for as long as I could. However, I noticed that my milk supply wasn’t getting the job done and he started eating baby food at that time, which means the feedings started to become less needed. However, I kept it up for as long as I could because my husband and I were faced with the question many parents have to consider when their kids head into their toddler phases and that is how do we help ensure they get good nutrition for their changing needs and tastes.
Okay, so let me say, when I noticed my breast milk getting low, we had to supplement with formula and I was somewhat disappointed.
My plan was to continue to feed and pump for as long as I could. I gave myself one year but I only last nine months. So, there was that whole ordeal I had with myself where I just felt bad that I could not continue to nurse my kid. I was faced with the reality of needing to supplement formula before I completely called it quits. I said to myself, if I was going to give my kid formula, I was going to choose the best brand we could afford. We decided to go with Enfamil. We chose this brand because their formula was inspired by breast milk. That made me feel better. Our son took to Enfamil right away. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the switch at all. This change took place when he turned nine months. When he turned one year old, we then began the conversation of toddler milk drinks.
Let me say, we had no idea what to do. It was nerve-wracking. We spoke to all of our friends and it was split down the middle as to what they chose to do for their kids at Calvin’s (our son’s) age. So, we were on our own. But when we tried whole milk on our son, what we found is that he would not take it! In fact, I am willing to say he hated it. He would only continue to take the formula that had been on for the previous 3-5 months. My husband and I went back to the drawing board and did some research on toddler milk drinks.
Here’s what we found:
- Toddler formula has calcium and phosphorous, which is essential to help your child grow.
- Toddler milk drinks like Enfagrow have DHA, which is an important omega-3 fatty acid that is also found in BREAST MILK! It also has prebiotics designed to support the immune system and has other nutrients to support growth and development.
- Toddler milk drink has iron, which is essential for brain development.
- Toddler milk drink has vitamins and nutrients important for proper development.
Need I say more?
With all of these awesome facts that my husband I found through basic research, it only made sense for us to continue to keep our son on Enfamil’s Enfagrow® Toddler NextStep™. Our son took so well to Enfagrow without any problems we wouldn’t consider another brand. When comparing the benefits of Enfagrow Toddler, we found that it had key nutrients that are important to us when it comes to our son’s diet and his brain development. Let’s talk about how he’s developing and the toddler milestones we have witnessed.
Milestones & Activities
My son is 18 months and he is repeating, babbling, and mimicking everything that he sees. In addition, his level of comprehension just gets better and better. To make sure that we are capitalizing on this time in his life where his mind is a sponge, we have started doing puzzles with him. I know it isn’t suggested that puzzles are introduced until kids are 2-3 years old, but we noticed a keen interest in him with wanting to put things together. So, I started off by buying used puzzles to see how he would do. He spent a lot of time staring at the pieces and one day after many attempts of practicing, my child, “the Genius”, started putting the puzzle pieces in the right spot! My husband and I stared at each other in amazement and went out to buy more puzzles so he can continue to use cognitive and comprehension skills. Now that I see my son with this level of skill, we want to continue to nurture that part of his brain.
Another interest my husband and I have noticed with our son is his interest in music! He loves listening to music, but he also loves playing with musical instruments. Our son has almost every age-appropriate musical toy you can think of. Before he starts playing with the blocks or any other toy that we think is far more interesting, he goes for his drum, piano, or cymbals first. He will bang and play with those instruments for hours throughout the day. In fact, my husband and I have decided to have his second birthday at a musical center here in our hometown! That takes care of his brain development, let’s discuss my son’s nutrient intake.
Nutritional Intake
We have been blessed with a beautiful, adorable, and downright cute son who also happens to be a very, very picky eater. Oh my gosh, he is impossible to please when it comes to feeding him. I have to make sure he has one of those fruit and veggie pouches after each meal just to help make sure he is getting nutrients and DHA to support his brain development. Well, the good news is with Enfagrow Toddler I don’t have to worry about that as much. On average, a toddler’s diet only provides 25% of the recommended amount of DHA, leaving a nutrition gap. The main source for DHA is fish and most toddlers do not like to eat fish. Toddler favorites like cereal, cheese, bananas, regular milk, chicken nuggets, mac & cheese, carrot sticks and fruit puree all have 0 mg of DHA. Let me tell you guys now, my son does not like fish…AT ALL! So, Enfagrow Toddler is important for us to help make sure our little Calvin is getting DHA. I am not here to tell you that should go with whole or toddler milk. I am here to tell you why we chose to stick it out with Enfagrow Toddler. If you are in the midst of making this decision, I encourage you to consider what’s best for your child. Think of everything your child needs to grow to be healthy and thrive.
Brain development in the years prior to school entry builds the foundation for success in school, at work, and throughout life.
https://www.eskaykids.com.au
Parents need much more education in this arena. And children need educated as well so they learn WHY they need to learn good habits. But the speaker HAD the education and still had a child who wasn’t thriving. I wish she had circled back to why that occurred and what had done to resolve it.
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