A new baby in the family is the ultimate blessing. The first year of life is full of milestones and certain challenges for the parents as well as the infants. Caring for infants during winters is of utmost importance. Here are certain things coming right from a mom with a toddler that can help you make the first year of your infant’s life a little less challenging and a little fuller of Joy!
Caring for infant’s skin in winters
The protective barrier of infant skin is not that strong therefore infants need special attention to skin care during winter months. Here are a couple of things you can keep in mind while caring for your newborns and infants’ skin during winter.
For obvious reasons you will need to dress up your infants in woolens during winter. Always make sure that the first layer of clothing that comes and direct contact with their skin should be of cotton. Aa, woolens can sometimes be scratchy and irritating to your infant skin.
Doctors recommend dressing up your infant in comfortable clothes during winters. Usually, one more layer of warm clothing than you would wear is considered good enough for the infant.
Moisturization is the key! Always, massage your infant’s skin with warmed up oils during winter before making them bathe. You can use warm olive oil, coconut oil or almond oil depending on your personal preference. This helps make their muscles and lymphatic drainage strong. Also, it helps reduce moisture loss during baths.
Never forget to moisturize your infant’s skin with the nourishing body lotion after bath. Take care to look for words like hypoallergenic, dermatologist approved, paraben free etc.
Infants keep putting their hands in their mouth repeatedly so, the moisturizer which you apply on your infants’ hands should not be chemical based. I suggest you put on some simple olive oil or even ghee to moisturize the hearts.
Also…
Infants tend to drool a lot therefore, the skin around their mouth can get itchy and red. It is important to keep this area moisturized but with nothing too greasy. Simple coconut oil should do the trick.
Please, do not put oil in your infant’s nose and ears as might be suggested by some elders in your family. It only accumulates more dirt and might even cause infections.
Ways to avoid repeated infections in winter in infants
These are certain general rules to avoid by regardless of the season when caring for an infant.
Anyone who is sick in the family should avoid contact with the and the primary care giver.
Don’t allow sick people to visit your newborn’s/ infant’s room.
Anyone coming home from outside should at least wash their hands and preferably, change their clothes before playing with the infant.
Give only freshly prepared, homemade food to your infant that is easy to digest.
Sharing of food, spoons etc with your infant should be avoided because your infant’s immunity is still building and they are more prone to catching infections.
Honey is not recommended for infants below 1 year of age to cure any kind of respiratory infections.
Building your infant’s immunity
It takes a while for infants to build their immunity and catching a couple of harmless infections during the first few years of their life is neither out of the ordinary nor anything to worry about much.
However as a parent there are certain things that you can do to help build your infants immunity
Breastfeeding is bypassing the best and most important way to build your infants immunity if due to any reason the mother is not able to breastfeed directly you can pump your milk and feed it to the infant or look out for donated breast milk
After 6 months of age, include lots of fruits, vegetables, pulses, grain etc. in suitable form and potion size in your infant’s diet.
Adding ghee in limited amounts is considered good too.
Certain spices like Nutmeg, Turmeric, Cinnamon, Pepper etc. are known to be rich in antioxidants therefore help in boosting immunity.
Nut and seed powders can be added to your infant’s food.
Massaging your infant helps to improve blood circulation and is also known to improve immunity.
These are certain things that can be done about caring for infants during winter months. Any tips Moms? Do share with us in the comments below…
Utpal Khot
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