Holiday Traditions: How to choose your family tradition.

While at a parent meeting this past week, our teacher talked about how traditions are formed. My husband and I have spent lots of time talking about family traditions  in our family.  What do we want our family traditions to be?  How do we decide what Holiday traditions are important?  Do we have any weekly traditions?  Stay tuned for another blog about forming other yearly traditions.  Today I am going to talk about the Holiday’s and the most important things your kids are looking for this holiday season.

The Four Things Children Really Want for any holiday

* A relaxed and loving time with Family
* Realistic expectations about gifts
* An evenly paced holiday Season
* Reliable family traditions

After reading this list, I realized for my own family I want many of these same things and we had already implemented some of these; for example we go out of town for Christmas since we don’t have family locally and so we have started opening a few presents early for our kids so they can enjoy each item for several days before anything new is added.  We also as a family don’t do that many gifts for our kids since grandparents and aunts and uncles also want to give and we don’t need children overloaded.  I love Christmas and traditions and I have carefully selected the parties and events we will attend and have spread them out so there is no added stress this year.  Here are My Dr. Walker favorite Traditions:

* Nativity pageant – Love celebrating Jesus Gift
* Giving and donating to others – We choose different projects
* Nutcracker - My grandmother would take me every year and I still have my nutcracker from when I was little.
* Christmas carol singing – Love to sing, so do my girls
* Christmas cookie Decorating – Love Decorating even more than eating
* Rudolph Claymation – Love the Classic Films
* Wrapping Presents – Love to watch a Hallmark Christmas movie and wrap the gifts.
* Stocking gifts – We still do stockings and it is my favorite part of Christmas.

So what do you do when mom get’s sick?

So what do you do when mom get’s sick?

I don’t get sick very often and usually I don’t ever get sick enough to be non-functional.  But this year I did get that sick, really sick and not able to get out of bed. I don’t have my mom or sisters and brothers that live locally. So - what does a working mom of two little girls do?  I am here to share my tips and tricks for how to prevent a meltdown so dad doesn’ t have to take gobs of time off when you crash.

1. Find a babysitter that has a flexible schedule. College students are usually a good choice, because they have classes at different times of the day so they have more time off which can give you relief.  Find them ahead of time and try them out for date nights so you already know them and trust them. Sometimes knowing 2 baby sitters is even better.  

2. Pre-sign up for Doordash  - have a few restaurant take out menu’s at home so that friends can help out and go pick up food for you.  Pre-highlight them with your favorite items to order so they don’t have to guess.

3. Amazon Prime Membership or Google Fresh. They can drop food and pantry items to your door so a working husband has food to cook for dinner and toilet paper without having to take time to go grocery shopping. These two sites can usually have a 30 day trial if you are not currently a member.

4. Make Friends. Friendship is good for the soul and they can also help you watch kids or make a food run and everyone needs a pick me up WITH the benefit of seeing a good friend.  This must be done before your illness since you can’t order a friend on Amazon.

5. Stock your medicine cabinet. I fill our medicine cabinet with homeopathic remedies as well as some, essential oils and herbal remedies.  One of my favorite homeopathic remedies for cold and flu is Belladona 30c.  

6. Get Rest. This requires no planning but when that babysitter does get there, don’t sit down to work at your computer or binge watch your show, go to bed and sleep.  Your body needs time to heal to function and fight off the infection so let it rest.  

7. See your Herbal Medicine Practitioner. Go see your acupuncturist or family practice chiropractor.  An adjustment can boost the immune system and acupuncture can help clear a stuffy head.  Not to mention the wonderful herbal biotics and anti-virals they have available to speed your healing.

The Dad and the Doula

I often refer people to Doula’s especially when dad is scared or worried about going through labor.  But more importantly, I refer everyone to who is going to give birth to a doula.  They are women who support and walk you through the process, offer comfort and advice, hold your hand through the process and so much more.  The common objection to doula’s are they cost too much or dad’s feel the doula will replace them during the birth process.  When I am asked of the benefits of a doula, I say they are the coach with dad or partner being the quarterback in the game.  The great doula’s actually facilitate a closer bound between partners during the birthing process.  Here is one dad’s view about their doula experience, and he has graciously decide to share the man’s view on doula’s!


First Time Dad Says….

As a first-time dad, I would have been lost in the delivery room without our doula. My wife was clearly experiencing something very intense and at times scary, and despite birthing classes, I didn't know what to do. Her back was in pain: should I ice it, heat it, massage it, or stay the hell away? Luckily, our doula was there to do all of them at the right times and in the right doses. The 20 minutes of labor in which our doula ran out to her car to get something were definitely the scariest minutes in labor, because I didn't know what to do and I felt like my wife was looking to me to make it better. I imagined our birth experience without a doula when my wife would be looking at me the whole time and I wouldn't have had any lead to follow -- I'm so glad that wasn't our case!

Do I adjust my own children???

I am a chiropractor and many of my patients ask the question do I adjust my own children, do they like it and why do I adjust them?

Both my children were adjusted in the first hour after birth and yes it was by me even though with my first daughter Zara I had promised that I wouldn’t.  But I couldn’t help it.  She was laying on my chest and I just started naturally feeling her tender new spine and making corrections to misalignments that had probably occurred during birth itself.  With Allegra my second child,  I waited until I was nursing her and she actually had trouble nursing on the right breast because her neck was tight and mis-aligned.  After adjusting her neck, she was able to nurse with no problem.

Children can be adjusted as soon as they are born and we have done this very thing for new babies in our practice.

Both my girls like receiving treatment, Zara will actually walk into the office, lay down on the table and inform me that it is her turn to get adjusted.  She also provides me with treatments sometimes.  Some of my older patients around 4-7 years of age will frequently ask after already getting adjusted to “do it again”.

Most children love to be adjusted.  There are some spectrum disorders and sensory processing kids that do take longer to warm up to receiving a chiropractic treatment.

My standard recommendation in our office is get your kids adjusted 2 times a year- if nothing out of the ordinary occurs.  Examples of why you should bring your child are did they take a tumble wrestling with their sibling? are they learning to walk so they are falling a lot?, etc.  There are lots of great health benefits on the nervous system to getting adjusted but for kid’s with healthy spines 2 times a year can be enough to make sure they grow as healthfully as possible.

I adjust my kids after major tumbles and growth spurts or if the baby is not pooping regularly or every couple of months or so.  I am always checking them because I can’t help it and their tiny spines are beautiful and amazing.

Here is an article on the chiropractic technique appropriateness of Pediatrics:
(how a trained chiropractor will adjust their force and their technique based on the patient size and age to be safe and effective).

http://www.jmptonline.org/article/S0161-4754(16)30108-7/pdf

Baby Finger Foods

I have a baby who prefers to feed herself and this means finger food time.   The typical age to start finger foods is 8 to 9 months old.  The best place to have finger foods is in the high chair, which prevents choking, rather than a car seat.  Resist the urge to offer your baby high sweet items such as cookies, try and stick to fruits and veggies.

Here are some suggestions for baby finger food and what to make:

Steamed broccoli – cut into small pieces
Steamed or baked yam – peel and cut into cubes
Cooked Peas
Grapes – Always cut in half
Steamed Cauliflower
Small bites of chicken or turkey
Rice crackers
Rice cereal
Fruit cut into small pieces only if the fruit is soft like kiwi or mango
Baked apples cut up
Cooked carrots cut up

Allegra loves eating with her hands and favors broccoli, blueberries and rice!!