Early Parenting Tips

Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow

APJ Abdul Kalam

This post is dedicated to all new mothers.

In this post, I would like to focus on a few difficulties I faced during my children’s upbringing, up to about the age of about three years. I have always tried to learn from others’ mistakes and was extra cautious during my children’s formative years. Some of the problems I faced during that time were common to everyone, and I will discuss how I dealt with them.

Preventing Thumb Sucking

We know that a child starts sucking their thumb whenever they feel lonely. My daughter, being the firstborn, never had that problem as I was at her side all the time. My son, however, started sucking his thumb as I had to divide my time between my two children. Thumb sucking can lead to dental as well as speech-related problems. When I noticed my son sucking his thumb, I first put socks on his hands to prevent him from sucking his thumb, but lo and behold, and he started sucking his toe. Then I tried putting socks on both hands and feet and he started sucking on the socks. I finally decided to start monitoring him whenever he was awake and within three days of monitoring, I managed to get him to stop sucking his thumb. Thumb sucking can be efficiently dealt with if caught early and be a terrible headache if it becomes a habit.

How I Improved Immunity

I never bottle-fed my children or gave them baby food available in the market. When they were 3.5 months old, I started giving them banana shake regularly, and at the age of 6 months, I started feeding them khichdi (mixture of rice, pulses, mixed vegetables, egg all cooked in a cooker and then coarsely ground in a mixer). Due to the balanced and nutritious diet, they rarely got sick, which also helped them with teething. My children did not exhibit any teething symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, rashes, fever, fussiness, or extensive crying. Instead, it was a cakewalk for me, and on one fine day, I just noticed an erupted tooth in the lower jaw of both my children.

Teaching Sense of heat

Whenever I used to iron clothes, my children, mainly my son, used to think of iron as a toy and tried to touch the hot surface. His behavior scared me as I had seen other children suffering from burns due to this. I decided to make them feel the iron’s hot body before it got too hot, and that ensured they did not try to touch it again and hence did not get burnt by this. Prevention is better than cure.

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