Following last year’s hot scandal on China’s tainted milk, we are now faced with a situation where scientists in the US have found traces of a chemical called perchlorate which is used in rocket fuel in baby formulas. Although it has yet to be found if this substance is indeed a threat to health, it remains to be a scare for many parents. Especially when the brands of these formula have not and will not be released. Until God knows when. If it is released only upon confirmation that perchlorate is indeed harmful to health, will it be too late?

Being a parent whose kid is still heavily dependent on formula, these scares have become a top priority in terms of making sure that whatever we are feeding the boy is safe from any harmful substances. But you just never know until cases like the above come to light in public. Even by reading the ingredients of the formula in detail will probably not be able to help us realise what is truly in the milk content.

Sometimes I wonder if we should enrol in some crash course at some healthcare training institutes just so that we can learn a little bit more about health and medical care, including some technical terms of what’s what. Don’t you find that sometimes some ingredients listed in food products are just too technical for us lay person? Unless you are some chemist or perhaps a pharmacist, you just won’t know what they mean.

In any case, if you are also as worried about the issue of possibly tainted milk coming from the US, what would you do? It hasn’t quite become a big issue here since the media hasn’t quite covered this story that has recently cropped up in US. But it doesn’t mean that things are still fine and dandy, right?

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

Parents should be afraid, very afraid!

Related Posts

• Rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula
• Harmful bacteria found in baby formula
• Isn’t a growing toddler supposed to drink less milk?
• How to check whether milk products are from China or Taiwan
• Safe dairy and milk products

Attention to all parents. Take note of this latest news of possibly tainted milk! In the US, scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found traces of chemicals used in rocket fuel in some baby formula.

The formula brands are not being released and there is also no evidence to prove any harm of the chemicals on the health of babies and adults alike. The said chemical is called perchlorate and was even found to be in some drinking water supplies in several cities in the US.

Read the full story here on Yahoo! Health.

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

Rocket fuel chemical found in baby formula

Related Posts

• Parents should be afraid, very afraid!
• Isn’t a growing toddler supposed to drink less milk?
• Safe dairy and milk products
• Is it true that Pediasure beefs up babies more?
• We’re getting more sleep

Remember I was talking about how my little boy was asking for milk a lot more often ever since I moved him up a stage from Enfalac to EnfaGrow? Well I’m happy to update that he’s now not consuming as often and is back to his usual milk feed frequency. A quick check with the shopkeeper about the contents of the milk powder revealed that EnfaGrow is supposedly easier to digest and thus it could be the reason why the boy was initially asking for more feeds as his body adjusts to the faster burning rate of the formula. I think by now his system has adjusted and he’s less “addicted” to the milk.

We continue to feed him with more solid food throughout the day and supplement with milk whenever he asks for it. In the nights, we’re getting more hours of uninterupted sleep as he has gone back to waking up once, at the most twice to ask for milk. We’re happy to be getting more rest as it was worrying for us when we had to wake up thrice a night.

For those few weeks when we were so exhausted from waking up, we even thought of changing our bed to a more comfortable sleep number bed if this trend continues for long. Our logic was that if we aren’t getting enough hours of sleep, at least having a good bed should help to make us more comfortable in our sleep. Of course good beds don’t come cheap, and yet we are aware of the benefit of having one. I guess for now, since times are so uncertain and we are getting back our regular hours of sleep, we will just hold off the purchase.

Speaking of beds, the boy is still not taking to the bed when it comes to sleeping. We tried recently to encourage him to lie down on his bed to sleep but he got up in less than five seconds! He just wouldn’t lie still. So back he went into the sarong for the night and is still doing so. Though the more experienced mothers keep telling me this is okay and one day he will just learn to stay still and fall asleep on the bed, I do wonder if it will really  happen just like that!

But whatever works for now is fine by us. We’re just happy to gain back some sleep and the fact that he’s back to his regular feeding habit. It’s a big relief!

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

We’re getting more sleep

Related Posts

• Isn’t a growing toddler supposed to drink less milk?
• How to beef up your kid and encourage growth
• A healthy start for the day
• Do you know how much sleep your kid needs?
• Harmful bacteria found in baby formula

As I understand it from other mummies, their little toddlers who have just passed the stage of babyhood are now consuming more solid food and less formula. It makes sense to me too and I’ve always assumed the same. But my little boy doesn’t seem to be slowing on the milk. Instead, he’s consuming even more!

Some two weeks ago I switched him to the next stage of formula, from Enfalac A+ to EnfaGrow A+. I gave him the same amount, which is 7 ounces during each milk time. Normally he would drink once in the morning when he wakes up, have breakfast and then maybe another time in the later part of the morning before his lunch on solid food. In the afternoons, he’ll probably consume another feed and then it’s porridge at dinner. After dinner, he may consume just one or two more feeds before he sleeps. In the nights, he would wake up once to satisfy his milk craving too.

But now that we’ve switched him to EnfaGrow, he’s asking for milk every hour or every two hours despite feeding him his full meals and snacks in between! It seems like he’s eating more solid food as well as drinking a lot more milk. One night, he even woke us up 3 times to ask for milk!

I’m wondering if this is normal since most mummy friends of mine are quite shocked with this story of mine. Anyone’s little one is taking on more milk like how he is doing?

One thought entered my mind. If I were breastfeeding him still and with his demand for milk shooting up like this, I think I would be eating non-stop myself just to keep up! And who knows, I may just grow too, to a point I might have to resort to things like Decaslim to control my “growth”! Good thing he weaned himself early on, huh?

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

Isn’t a growing toddler supposed to drink less milk?

Related Posts

• How to beef up your kid and encourage growth
• We’re getting more sleep
• Is it true that Pediasure beefs up babies more?
• A healthy start for the day
• Parents should be afraid, very afraid!

My little one is an active boy who will not sit or lie still for more than 5 minutes. He won’t even lie still on the bed to rest even though he’s tired and sleepy. Because of this, we found that he was hardly putting on any weight or growing any taller. The doctor also thought that his lack of physical growth was due to this reason and encouraged us to feed him more snacks in between meal times. And so we did.

We also tried to change his formula to Pediasure which we were told was effective in helping babies and toddlers gain weight quickly. A friend of mine confirmed this as it worked for her daughter. So we tried it on him. Unfortunately he didn’t like the taste and refused to drink it. Not knowing better, we mixed the formula with his regular one, and he would drink it. Luckily, when I mentioned this to my friend, she told me that I shouldn’t be mixing the two milk powders this way. Apparently this was told to her by the paediatrician. She didn’t ask the reason why, but I’m guessing that it’s because the two milk powders have different composition and therefore has different digestion periods. Mixing them together would probably be confusing to the body system and I suspect one would be compromised more than the other in terms of extracting the best nutrients from each of these formulas.

I was told that if at all we wish to mix the two formulas, we can do so by alternating the feeds. This doesn’t work for us because the boy just wouldn’t drink it “neat”. So we’re decided to do away with Pediasure and tried other ways to beef him up instead. What we found to be quite useful is also the Calciyum yogurt. It’s supposedly to be helpful in children’s growth and true enough, we have noticed that he’s grown faster since we began feeding him with Calciyum. Of course that’s not the one and only factor that helped with his growth, we’ve also been feeding him a lot more in between his meals and milk intake. He loves bread and rice and these may have helped to make him grow faster too.

Now we are rather happy with his rate of growth. Listening and learning from what other experienced parents have done with their kids to help with their growth have helped us a lot. At least it’s a lot less trial and error with products that we aren’t sure would work. We are also careful in not over-feeding the boy so that he won’t become obese and unhealthy. He is taking in some carbs and we’re making sure that they are healthy carbs. I definitely don’t want to go down the road in having to look for weight loss supplements for him next time should we go overboard with feeding him too much!

What are your methods and secrets to beefing up your kids healthily?

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

How to beef up your kid and encourage growth

Related Posts

• Isn’t a growing toddler supposed to drink less milk?
• We’re getting more sleep
• Is it true that Pediasure beefs up babies more?
• A healthy start for the day
• Why God made mums