im in 2 minds atm need some adive

[mum2ollie]

hi there ladies

Im a childminder, and i look after my son with another child hes nearly 14 months old this other boy, the thing is hes mum n dad are veggiatians, n they have pushed it onto their son too.

wht the advice is that hes skin is so dry very red, n very scallie, hes forever scratching his face, now his mum n dad say its ezma, but i dont know after a few days it clears up n looks really gd n then he scraches it again. n makes it all red raw again.

i have said to her about vitimans n she told me that he gets enough in his diet but most days he only has rice, n veg. but shes doesnt want to know.

the poor boy doesnt crawl stand, or talk n hes 14 months i know every baby is different but i just thought he should besaying a few words now.

wht does every1 think about this i would love to give him a saussage but i cant i have to respct their wishes but the poor boy donest look right

 

[Sabrina]

It's lovely that you are so concerned about this little boy in your care.

It could be something in his diet is not helping his eczema as quite often the condition can be caused by nutritional deficiences. Although this doesn't mean he necessarily needs meat.

My first son suffered from eczema as a baby/toddler and also got asthma (the two are often linked). His eczema was treated by creams and bath oils which helped lubricate the skin. As a baby we were advised to put him in scratch mittens to stop him making it worse. Good news is that he did grow out of it at around 18 months. (Although he still has asthma).

I think it's a bit of a tricky situation. If he were my son and I was bringing him up strict vegetarian I would be quite upset at someone giving him meat (albeit well meaning). Could you have a chat with the mum about his condition and see what they are doing about it already? There are lots of creams available to ease the rash and maybe they need to get him checked over by his GP or a dermatologist to try that route first.

 

[libs]

a sausage?????

believe me there's nothing in a sausage that's going to help him. v low in iron, protein and high in fat and fillers. If the little boy still drinks a lot of milk he will be getting protein from that. Bit of cheese or full fat yogurt will add fat to his diet. - essential for development.

If the child is suffering from eczema it's more likely to be connected to dairy products than meat products. Other than that skin conditions tend to be related to vitamin B2 (dairy, cheese, veg) vitamin B6 (bananas, dried beans and wholegrains) and to help healing vit C (veg and fruit)

So as you can see his diet probably gives him enough vitamins for his skin. It does sound like eczema - that's how my niece's eczema goes, flares up then heals and so on.

I'm not vegetarian - but I hardly think you can claim 2 vegetarians have forced their choice on a child, in a veggie household then I would expect a child to be vegetarian.

As for his development - thats unlikely to be related to his diet, maybe you're right to be concerned there, but I doubt a bit of meat will put that right. If you care for the child day to day, then you can offer a wider variety of foods to him for lunch (e.g. a vegetarian casserole with pulses etc - if suitable for his age) - but you can't give him meat. I would be fuming if a childminder went against the most basic of my instructions in that way.