Are you worried you aren’t making healthy choices for your kids? Or are you concerned you don’t know what type of healthy habits you should help your kids develop. All children get sick from time to time – it’s just a fact of life. But did you know that there’s a lot that you can do as a mommy to slash the amount of times they get ill during any given year?  Making simple changes and lifestyle choices will ensure that your children stay healthy all year long.

That’s right: with simple lifestyle changes, you can cut the number of sick days that they have to take off school. And you may even be able to keep them healthy and happy all year round. Wouldn’t that be great?

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some healthy lifestyle choices all mommy docs prescribe for their kids. 

8 Healthy Lifestyle Choices For Kids

Insist On Regular Bedtimes

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Kids don’t like being told to go to sleep, especially if parents are still downstairs, watching TV and enjoying a glass of wine. But, when it comes to kids’ health, regular bedtimes are non-negotiable. 

According to doctors, kids who are sleep-deprived are more susceptible to infections. A lack of rest shuts down the immune system and makes it less responsive to invading germs. Eventually, the inevitable happens and your child gets the sniffles. 

Sleep, according to doctors, is when the body restores and heals itself. So you want to ensure that your child gets between 8 and 14 hours of the stuff, depending on their age. 

Give Your Kids A Probiotic

Researchers are discovering that the bacteria that live in the gut significantly determine children’s health outcomes. If they have good germs, then their immunity goes up, whereas if they have bad germs, it goes down. 

Parents, therefore, like to feed their children probiotics alongside a healthy diet. 

Probiotics are foods that contain live cultures, such as yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut. Giving your kids a probiotic helps to boost the number of good bacteria in their system and reduce the amount of bad. It can even help fight off disease. 

In the past, researchers thought that stomach acid killed off all bacteria before they could enter the lower intestines to do their work. But it turns out that a large number of them actually survive. So feeding probiotics is one of the best ways to keep kids healthy. 

Make Sure to Apply Sunscreen

Whenever you know your kids are going to be outside for a long period, make sure that you apply sunscreen. Using sunscreen is essential, especially early on in life, because of the risk of skin cancer developing during adulthood.

A single burn when they are young dramatically increases the risk of serious health problems as they get older. 

Does sunscreen expire? Yes, but usually only after a long time. Some bottles will last three or more years, so you can use them through multiple seasons. 

Get Your Kids Used To Eating Healthy Foods

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Great food is one of the best ways to ensure your children stay healthy. This one lifestyle choice can be the difference between runny noses and healthy, happy kids. The modern world is often a toxic environment for kids – everything from pollution to social media. But the food we eat is also a significant obstacle that gets in the way of health. Junk food, sugary drinks and snacks all slowly cause children to gain weight and become less active than they would like. 

The trick here is to introduce healthy foods and snacks naturally from a young age. Try to get their taste buds used to the idea of consuming whole foods, such as raw carrots or celery sticks. Dried fruit and nuts are also a good option, so long as your child doesn’t have any allergies. 

You can make healthy food palatable by following great recipes. There are all kinds of wholefood chefs out there who can show you how to prepare delicious meals. Follow their recipes to the letter and you’ll wind up with something that actually tastes pretty darn good. 

Ditch The Commercial Cleaning Products

Too many adults have developed allergies from chemical exposure all their lives. Sometimes, commercial cleaning products are necessary, but rarely. Most of the time, you can rely on good old-fashioned elbow grease and natural cleaners, like lemon and vinegar. 

Ditching regular products is also good for your children. Research shows that the antibacterial chemicals in soaps and cleaners can actually inhibit the growth of essential bacteria in your child’s gut. And that, in turn, can have a deleterious effect on their immunity. 

The good news is that simple soap and water are good enough for killing most germs. The vast majority of bacteria and viruses can’t survive contact with soap, which is why public health professionals recommend using it to protect against coronavirus. 

Encourage More Imaginative Play

Play – Healthy Lifestyle Choice for kids? Absolutely!

Kids love to play: that’s a given. But they are becoming increasingly enamored with screens, leading to inactivity. 

As a parent, it’s your job to show them that there’s a big wide world out there. And many aspects of it are actually more exciting than their iPhones or tablets. 

Some parents are instituting “tech-free time” where children just play outside, as nature intended. This space away from the digital world gives them time to grow and develop as people. 

Get Kids To Wash Their Hands More Frequently

Over the last year, public health authorities have been imploring us to wash our hands more frequently to prevent the spread of COVID-19. But, as it turns out, regular hand washing is a great way to prevent numerous infections, including colds, flu, and other disease-causing viruses that can live on surfaces. 

As a parent, encouraging hand washing can prevent your kids’ sickness from disrupting your life. When your child takes time off school, it usually means that you have to take a break from work as well to look after them. And that can damage your relationship with your colleagues and employer. 

There are great ways to encourage your kids to wash hands. Use of foaming hand soaps usually does the trick, but be prepared for children to spend a lot of time washing while they have fun in the bathroom.

Limit, But Don’t Ban, Junk Foods

Don’t eliminate all junk foods. When kids go to school, friend’s houses, or even grandma’s house, they will encounter less healthy foods. If they never have these foods with you, they may begin to see foods as “good” and “bad” and the healthy foods you feed them may be “bad” in their eyes.

Additionally, without access to certain foods, kids will feel they have no control over what they eat, and may begin to develop unhealthy eating habits. Many eating disorders arise from children feeling a lack of control in their lives.

Remember: Forcing children to eat everything on their plate before getting the snack item will cause problems later in life too.

All parents want the best for their children, but your child is a unique individual with their own personalities and likes and dislikes. What works for one child (or family) won’t always work for every child, but this list of 8 healthy lifestyle choices for your kids is a good starting point to make sure your kids stay healthy!