Food diversification

Voici le premier texte (en anglais) d’une longue série avec notre nouvelle partenaire Lauriane Frichment, coach en nutrition. 

Hello lovely mums and mums-to-be,

The first three years of a child’s life is essential to establish a healthy immune system. Their little bodies are fragile and everything is so new. All their bodily systems are working hard to ensure a good appetite, a good coordination to establish the crawling/walking process, speech etc. A lot goes on in their first few months/years!

And they depend on us to ensure that they are well fed to help their bodies cope with all that work! We have full control on what we offer them for the first few years of their lives so let’s make best use of it!

Healthy habits are established very early! As soon as the diversification process begins, make sure you offer all the seasonal vegetables, healthy grains, healthy proteins, healthy fats (not all at once of course 😉 but in a timely manner – the idea is to offer them a range of nutrients). No sugar, no salt! Their palates are completely neutral and what we think may be bland is actually very tasty for them as they have nothing else to compare it to. They get to experience the actual taste of the vegetable without it being mixed with lots of cream or salt. 

We also want them to listen to their bodies. They know better than we do if a new tooth is around the corner or a slight cold is coming up. So not to worry if dinner isn’t completely finished, they will eat better tomorrow. Today, their body knows that their immune system needs to work harder to eliminate that upcoming cold so their digestive system needs to take a back seat.

It is also important to start from an early age the habit of eating as a family, to avoid external distractions such as ipads during dinner, to show our children the right example. They are sponges and observe and repeat all our actions. It is also a great way to start eating better as a parent! No more excuses not to eat well 🙂  

Everything starts in the gut. A misbalance in the healthy gut-bacteria causes a ton of unwanted complications. So bring in the sweet potatoes, the avocados, the garlic, the turmeric, parsley…there’s a bunch of things we can do to boost their immune system to give them a chance at a healthy life.

If you are interested in learning more about the “Nutrition for children” workshop, please be sure to let Elsa or myself know so that we can organise one in Geneva. Alternatively, I will be putting videos of my workshops on my website shortly, along with meal plans and lots of bonuses.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Lauriane Frichment
lauriane@nutrifamilycoach.fr www.nutrifamilycoach.fr