Healthy food for fussy eaters

How do working parents feed kids quick, healthy food on school nights and squeeze homework, bedtime stories, cleaning up and maybe some downtime into the remains of the day?

It's easy to fall for convenience, kidding ourselves that peeling packages and microwaving their contents counts as cooking. But somewhere between frozen chicken nuggets and the time-consuming roasts our grandmothers made, there's another way. Its acquiring a repertoire of easy, healthy dishes that are quick to cook (or cook themselves while you do something else) and flexible, meaning they can be simmered, easily reheated or eaten cold an important consideration given that many families eat in shifts.

Child water safety at home

Children drown silently, in mere minutes. Despite the best efforts of parents and caregivers to keep their children safe, drowning remains one of major causes of child death in Australia. 

Almost all parents have experienced losing sight of their child in a supermarket, in a park, at a backyard party, or even at home for a couple of minutes. If there is a source of open water nearby, this amount of time is all it takes for a child to wander or fall into the water and drown.

Healthy Food Choices for Kids

Left to their own devices, kids will likely eat what's easy. So, in order to help them to consume a healthy, balanced diet, try to stock a variety of good-for-them snacks and pack lunches that include kid-friendly, but healthy items.

Baby Food Safety: Heating, Cooling and Storage

The Food Standards Agency estimates the number of food poisoning cases in the UK to be around five million people each year. Food poisoning varies from mild stomachache to extremely severe illness requiring hospital treatment. Young children and babies are most at risk from food poisoning because it doesn't take much for them to lose a high percentage of body fluid and become dehydrated.

Food poisoning in the home can be kept at bay with stringent food hygiene practices. Many busy mums prepare food in advance, and often raise questions concerning the safety of cooling, storing and heating ready prepared meals. This article will address some of those questions and future articles will deal with raw food preparation and hygiene.

Flat Head Syndrome in Babies

If you spend a great deal of time in the presence of babies, you have certainly noticed that it is becoming fairly common to see an infant with a flat spot on the back or side of the head. This phenomenon, known as positional plagiocephaly, or more commonly as flat head syndrome, is caused when babies spend a considerable amount of time with their head resting in the same position, such as when travelling in a car safety seat or Stroller.

Toy Safety for Babies and Children

Play is a vital part of child development and while safer than ever before, as parents we should remain vigilant about hidden hazards posed by toys on store shelves.
So what can we do to keep little ones safe at play? Useful points to consider include what to look for when buying toys, understanding safety marks and labelling, ensure that the right safety checks have been carried out, and considerations when giving and receiving used toys.

Can Mobile Phones Harm Children?

There are currently over 60 million mobile phones being used in the UK and they continue to increase in popularity, as new features become available. Just as you struggle to remember life before TV, it would be unimaginable not to have mobile phones - our children have never known a world without them.

While most studies have found no raised risk of brain tumours, the long-term effects of using a mobile regularly are still not known as they have only been in widespread use since the 1990s.

Safe Sleeping For Babies

Babies spend a huge amount of time asleep – or at least, in theory they do – so ensuring your baby is safe and sound while doing so is crucial. To help your baby sleep safely, you need to take into consideration aspects such as where he sleeps, how he sleeps, the bedding you use and what's in the cot.

Getting Your Baby to Sleep

Whoever coined the phrase, "sleep like a baby" must not have been a parent. As all exhausted parents will tell you, babies tend to sleep sporadically, at best. One night, your baby may sleep all the way through, but the next may have you getting up three or four times. After several months, most babies do settle into a predictable sleep pattern, and there are a number of things that parents can do to help their babies get the idea that nighttime is for sleeping.

Health Effects of Pesticides for Children

Asthma

• Researchers found an association between asthma and use of pesticides by male farmers. (Senthilselvan et al, 1992) Although this study involved adults, it raises concerns about children's exposures to pesticides used in the home or residues brought home on parents' clothes or equipment.
  
  

Birth Defects

• The commonly used pesticide, chlorpyrifos (brand name Dursban) caused severe birth defects in four children exposed in utero. Chlorpyrifos is used widely as an agricultural chemical, but is also the most common pesticide used indoors to kill termites, fleas, roaches and in pest control strips. (Sherman, JD. 1996 Chlorpyrifos (Dursban)-associated birth defects: report of four cases. Arch. Env .Health 51(1): 5-8)