How can I make sure that my child is properly nourished and develops healthy eating habits?
Food, glorious food! One of the many tasks of parenthood is to teach healthy eating. Whatever the age when they join their family, a child may be undernourished, overweight, or average in size. New adoptive parents often need to meet a childs unique nutritional needs while simultaneously enhancing their attachment to the family. Nutritional changes should be gradual, rather than abrupt. Babies may benefit from continuing the same formula they had been fed in their birth home, previous foster home, or orphanage. Although many health care providers recommend that children be weaned from the bottle at 12 to 15 months, children whove gone through many transitions may benefit from keeping their bottle for comfort until they are older. (For dental reasons, however, infants and toddlers should not be given propped bottles, bottles in bed, or bottles with anything but water with which to walk around.) For many of us, food provides comfort. Yet, for children who lived in institutions, feeding t
