From birth to one year, babies grow by leaps and bounds. Parents celebrate the voracious appetites their little ones display. How exciting it is to watch them go from breast or bottle to cereal, purees and finger foods!

After that first birthday, physical growth slows significantly. While this slowdown is normal, many parents worry that it’s the result of erratic eating habits.

Between the ages of 12 and 24 months, decreased appetite can be expected. It may seem to parents that their little one isn’t eating enough. Not to worry: if the child is healthy and active and offered nutritious foods, she’s probably just fine.

Even though children are tracked on growth charts — putting a percentile number to height and weight — parents should refrain from comparing their children to playmates, classmates and cousins. Instead, concerned parents should consult with the pediatrician if they’re worried about their child’s weight.

Parents should also resist the temptation to push food on their toddler. Toddlers love to take control and will use food to get it. It’s not unusual for a toddler to go on a hunger strike just because she can.

The best thing parents can do is not obsess. Attempting to force feed or trick a child into eating is apt to backfire. Toddlers may have strange eating habits, but they do tend to get what they need to stay healthy.

Parents can model good eating habits by having meals as a family and enjoying the food. Toddlers are good imitators and will pick up on this healthy behavior.

Read more:

• Dealing with fussy toddlers
• Lunches your toddler will love
• Toddlers and meal time: Keeping them satisfied so you can get dinner ready

Getting a toddler to eat right is not easy.Some toddlers are fnicky while others just can’t sit still at mealtime. Since toddlers don’t usually eat a lot at one sitting, it’s a good idea to give them snacks between meals.

• Create a snack schedule, serving meals and snacks at about the same time every day. Keeping kids on a schedule helps them recognize when they’re hungry and when they’re full. This ability will help them maintain a healthy weight by not overeating.
• Choose a healthful snack. Since toddlers can’t buy their own food, you can control what you keep in the house. Let them snack on dry cereal (Cheerios remains a favorite), whole-grain crackers or muffins, small bites of fresh fruit (like a peeled, chipped apple), or little pieces of cheese.
• Give your child some control over the food. Your toddler may be picky or just plain stubborn, so making a decision that he’ll eat this instead of that gives him a satisfying feeling of control. Offer new foods on a regular basis, remembering that it can take up to 15 tries before a child is willing to eat something new.
• Watch the sweets. Don’t use treats to bribe your child and don’t let them become a daily snack. Make sweets the exception so that he’ll feel neither deprived nor entitled. The fewer such snacks you keep on hand, the less tempted everyone will be.

Healthy, scheduled snacks can help balance a child’s diet, tide them over from meal-to-meal, and prevent hunger and crankiness.

Source: Kids Health

Read more: Healthy recipes for toddlers - vegetables in disguise

I just found out from our 10-year-old that her 5-year-old picks sister picks her nose on the bus. Worse than that, she wipes her boogies on the wall of the bus!

Kids are fascinated by holes like nostrils, ears and the belly button. To them, picking and prodding these irresistible places is natural and fun. To us, it’s embarrassing.

Beyond the parental humiliation, however, is the risk of health consequences. Your child’s fingers have also been in dozens of places with bacteria and germs. Putting that dirty finger in her nose is like planting a disease.

Children can accidentally scratch the skin inside the nose with sharp little fingernails. Picking can also lead to a skin infection called impetigo.

If you catch your child starting to pick, offer her a tissue. Consider using over-the-counter or homemade saltwater drops to keep her nose from getting too try. You can even apply some nursery jelly to the lining of the nostrils to protect them from wandering fingers. And try not to overreact to the picking — she may do it just for attenion!

I try to be a good mom and make sure my kids always have tissues; unfortunately, I can’t always make sure they use them. For now, I suppose I’ll donate some cleaning supplies to the bus company…

Chat with Nose Pickers Anonymous on the She Knows Message Boards.

There are times when dressing a toddler is no easy feat. Whether you have to chase her around the room or try to get the sleeves from bunching up under her sweater, you’re likely to walk away in a sweat.

If you set the groundwork early, you can make getting dressed more fun and less stressful, says child expert William Sears, M.D., author of The Baby Book: Everything you Need to Know about Your Baby from Birth to Age Two.

Sears offers these suggestions:

Before your child has a chance to take off, engage her in a game of peekaboo. Start by putting your face through her shirt to peekaboo her. She’ll likely want to participate, giving you a chance to slip that shirt right over her head!

The limbs are always a challenge. Try the Hokey-Pokey song — “You put your right foot in” — just  make it up as you go along.

At age 1, your child can cooperate with dressing and can do some self-dressing by age 2.

Between ages 3 and 4, your child will begin selecting her own clothes and dressing herself. Help her by providing simple, loose-fitting clothing that promotes success.

Your child’s fashion sense may clash with yours, but she may use her fashion sense to express her developing personality. Bite your tongue if she wants to go to the store in the blue polka-dot dress over a pair of brown sweatpants. Congratulate her every time she’s able to dress herself, regardless of the ensemble. (Hint: filling her drawers with coordinated clothes may help her put matching outfits together.)

Brace yourself: this could be the beginning of a fashion adventure. Can’t you just picture the teen years?

It’s not unusual to see a toddler walking with his feet turned in. Sometimes it’s referred to as walking pigeon-toed; doctors call it in-toeing.

In-toeing is not harmful to a child and tends to correct itself over time without any medical treatment. It usually disappears by 4 to 6 years old. After he outgrows it, a child can generally walk, run and play sports without any difficulty.

According to Kids Health.org, in-toeing begins in the womb. As babies grow, the bones between the knees and ankles rotate inward so the baby is able to fit within the uterus. Sometimes the bones between the hips and knees also turn in. Naturally, when children are learning to walk, it’s normal for their feet to turn in.

Years ago, special shoes or braces were prescribed to treat in-toeing. Over time, however, doctors determined that these devices didn’t speed up the process of correcting the in-toeing, so they’re rarely used today.

There are cases in which in-toeing is a sign of illness or an injury and requires treatment. Consult your doctor if your child

• is 3 years old and has not started to improve
• has in-toeing that worsens
• complains of pain in the feet or legs
• is also limping
• has one foot that turns in significantly more than the other
• is not learning to walk as expected

Since in-toeing disappears so gradually, improvement may be hard to notice. Taking occasional videos of the child walking and comparing them may make it easier to determine if the in-toeing is improving. If it’s not, talk with your child’s doctor.

Visit the She Knows Message Boards to read real-life stories from parents dealing with in-toeing.

Why is the sky blue? Why do animals have fur? Why? Why? Why?

Toddlers and preschoolers are equipped with a natural curiosity about their surroundings. At first you’re so impressed by your child’s inquisitiveness. How brilliant she is to be questioning the meaning of life at this tender age!

After a few days, weeks or months of Why? questions, however, you’re no longer impressed … now you’re just annoyed. (Admit it. It’s true.) It’s wonderful that your child wants to know everything about anything, but you don’t have to provide a textbook answer to every question.

The Why? questions have a tendency to snowball. It starts with an innocent, “Why is the sun round?” and before you know it you’re in way over your head with in-depth questions about the solar system and astronomy.

Often times, the Why? is just a way of clarifying something your child didn’t get the first time around. But sometimes the Why? is a habit. You can help your child break the habit like this:

Answer the child’s initial question with an age-appropriate answer. Then, instead of allowing your child to respond with more Why? questions, you could ask her some questions. This is beneficial in a couple of ways: it encourages two-way conversation, and it’s a good way to determine how much of the answer your child actually grasped. Help her further by encouraging the use of other questions that will result in less generic answers — Who? What? Where? When? and How?

Enjoy the Why? stage for as long as you can. Someday your child will be a teenager who makes baffling decisions, and you will be asking, “Why?”

Your toddler - who always rested so peacefully at night - now refuses to go to bed without the lights on.

Younger babies are not afraid of the dark because if they can’t see something, it doesn’t exist. But as they approach toddlerhood and their understanding grows, they figure out that the dark covers up things that are still there even though they can’t see them. What your toddler hasn’t figured out yet, however, is that the dark isn’t hiding anything that wasn’t there in the light - like monsters or scary animals.

Your child’s fears are a natural part of growing up. Here’s how you can help:

Encourage your child to talk about what’s frightening him. Say something like, “Telling me what you’re afraid of may help make it go away.” He may have trouble expressing exactly what’s scaring him, but he’ll feel safer knowing that you’re not afraid. If he wants to talk about it obsessively, allow him. Oftentimes, a child overcomes his fear by talking about or playing out what it is he’s afraid of.

Understand that however unreasonable her fears may seem to you, they are very real and upsetting to her. While you can reassure your child by modeling bravery, you shouldn’t discount how she feels or belittle her.

Explore the room with your child - first with, then without the lights on. Show him how his dresser looks one way during the day and different in the dark. Show him how nothing new can appear just because it’s dark.

If your child wants to be with you throughout the night, give in a little. Keep her in her own room, but consider snuggling in bed with her for awhile until she feels less afraid.

Read Banishing bedtime blues for more helpful tips.

Does your preschooler ever see you naked?

In many households, children are accustomed to seeing their parents without clothes - getting out of the shower, dressing, or using the toilet. While other parents would rather not expose their naked bodies to their children, every now and again it happens. And it’s perfectly fine.

Seeing you naked causes your child no harm. In fact, seeing that you are relaxed and comfortable in your nakedness encourages your child to feel comfortable and proud about his or her own body.

Seeing nude bodies that are unlike their own may prompt children to ask questions about the differences in size, shape, and general hairiness between his or her body and yours. It’s a perfect opportunity to explain (in an age-appropriate way) what various body parts are called, and how they change as your child grows.

If you are uncomfortable with it, or if you just feel that it is not appropriate for your household, then do not feel obligated to show yourself. Respecting another’s privacy and feelings is just as important a lesson.

Learning to walk is a major milestone in your baby’s life. Through the first 12 months, your baby will learn to sit, roll, creep, crawl, pull up, and stand. While most babies begin walking between nine and 13 months, some may wait until the sixteenth or seventeenth month. A general time line of what to expect might look like this:

• By the ninth month, your baby may try to pull himself up while holding onto furniture, crib rails, anything within reach that will support him. At first, he’ll pull up to standing and stay put; but before long he’ll begin cruising along the edges of furniture to get from one place to another.
• At around 10 months, your baby will figure out what her knees are for. She’ll also probably learn that she can sit down when she tires of standing.
• By the 11th month, your baby can probably stand alone and squat, but may not have tried to take any steps yet.
• After his first birthday, right around 13 months, most little ones are walking on their own, but some are still not quite feeling ready.
• By the time your child is 18 months old, she should be able to walk well.

Avoid baby walkers - not only can they be dangerous, but babies who use them tend to walk later than their peers who do not use walkers. And don’t worry about shoes until your child is walking outside. Going barefoot helps improve balance.

If you are concerned that your baby seems “way behind schedule,” or if your baby shows no interest in walking or moving around, consult your doctor.

A pediatrician offers more insight at Late walkers: When should baby learn to walk?

A new study by the University of Massachusetts shows that having television on in the background can disrupt a child’s playtime focus.

The researchers observed 50 children, who were 12-, 24-, and 36-months old. The toddlers were given a variety of age-appropriate toys for one hour. For half of that time, a television was turned on remotely in the room (playing Jeopardy! with commercials); during the other half hour, the television was turned off. When the TV was on, the children played for significantly shorter periods of time, and the time they spent focused on their play was shorter compared with when the TV was off. Even if the children were not interested in or watching the TV, they were distracted by it.

Child development experts advise that imaginative play is crucial to healthy cognitive and social development. Background TV sound and fleeting images may interrupt that healthy development. “Background TV, as an ever-changing autiovisual distractor, disrupts children’s efforts to sustain attention to ongoing play behaviors,” advises Dr. Marie Evans Schmidt of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston. “Background TV is potentially a chronic environmental risk factor affecting most American children. Parents should limit their young children’s exposure to background television.”

The researchers suggest that even though the effects of background television on play behavior from this study are small, “they may have a cumulative impact through large amounts of exposure in the home. These may include poorer cognitive and language development and attention deficit symptoms.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no “screen media” for children under age 2, yet studies show that three-quarters of very young children in America live in homes where the TV is on most of the time.

Read more:  TV influences infants’ behavior