We all know by now that we should be eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. But knowing and doing are two different things, aren’t they? Sometimes it is just not easy to get them all in there. We are constantly tempted to fill up on convenience and junk food. If your family is anything like mine, they’d much rather fill up on a bag of chips or a bowl of rice or pasta instead of trying an apple or a plate of steamed broccoli. A little creativity and preparation can go a long way though! Here are a few ideas to “sneak” some extra vegetables and fruits in your family’s diet. 

1. Start the day with a breakfast smoothie. All you have to do is throw some fruits, low-fat yogurt and ice in a blender. You may also want to add a scoop of protein powder in there for good measure. Just blend for a few seconds and you have the perfect breakfast ready to go. I like to sip mine in a thermal cup on the way to work. To make it even more appealing for your kids, use some frozen yogurt or a scoop of ice cream in the smoothie. They won’t believe that you are letting them have ice cream for breakfast. 

2. Dried fruit makes an excellent snack any time of the day. Add some small cartons of raisins to your child’s lunch box, pack some yogurt-covered raisins in your husband’s briefcase and keep some trail mix sitting around for snacking. You can also add dried fruit to oatmeal and cereal in the morning. My family loves banana chips in their breakfast cereal. 

3. Add some fruits and vegetables to your family’s sandwiches. You can add some banana, sliced apples or strawberry slices to a peanut butter sandwich. Top a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and anything else they will eat. You can even make a sub shop style vegetable sandwich by combining several different vegetables with some mayonnaise and cheese on bread. 

4. Have a salad bar at dinner. Set out a variety of chopped vegetables, some cheese and croutons as well as several choices of salad dressing along with the lettuce and let everybody create their own perfect salad. 

5. Let them drink their fruits and vegetables. Keep an assortment of fruit and vegetable juices in the fridge and encourage everyone to drink them as a snack. Get creative. You could start “family cocktail hour” by pouring everybody a glass of his or her favorite juice over ice. Add some straws, cocktail umbrellas and sit together to talk about how everybody’s day went. 

6. Try this for dessert. Put a small scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt in a bowl and top it with lots of fresh or frozen fruit. 

7. Offer fruits and vegetables as snacks. You can cut apples into slices and top them with peanut butter or cheese. Cube cheese and serve with grapes. Cut up some fresh veggies and serve them with ranch dip. And of course there’s ants on a log. Spread some cream cheese or peanut butter on the inside of a stick of celery and sprinkle raisins on it (wow, fruit and vegetable in one snack). 

8. Try some new fruits and vegetables. Pick something exotic to get your family’s curiosity. With a little luck their curiosity will outweigh their initial apprehension to trying something new. You could try artichokes, plantains, papaya, mango, star fruit, or anything else you can find in the produce department of your local store. 

9. Make a pot of vegetable soup or a stew that’s heavy on veggies and easy on the meat. Both of these make some great comfort food when the weather gets cold. 

10. Start “My Veggie Day”. Each family member gets to pick a vegetable one day of the week.

Incorporate a few of these ideas and you will have everyone in your family eating more fruits and vegetables in no time!

Halloween is coming! And it’s time to get in shape for the big day. Lugging all that candy around from house to house is harder work than you think! 💪

Here are five spooky, Halloween-themed 🎃 exercises you can do at home, at the park, or on your trick-or-treat haunts to get you in the SPOOKY spirit:

The Zombie Twist

A simple exercise where you stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and arms out in front of you. Then twist your arms from side to side and say “BRRRRAAAIIIINNNSSS” like a zombie!

The Soaring Pumpkin

This is a great way to work on your core strength while getting into the spirit of Halloween—lie on your back and lift your arms, head, and legs off the ground. Grab a pumpkin and hold it between your hands and feet (make sure it isn’t too big or heavy). Now lower the pumpkin toward your tummy and then push it back up into the sky to make it SOAR!

The Stingy Spider Squat

This exercise will help you strengthen all those leg muscles we use when we’re running from vampires or other spooky creatures. Start in standing with your feet hip distance apart. Then squat down as if you were trying to hide from something scary, and repeat! Make sure your arms are stretched out too so you really look like a leggy, crawly spider!

Monster Jumps

Jump up and down as if trying to scare someone into giving you candy. Don’t forget to get your monster claws out, and get creative with your jumps! If you want to be a monster that jumps on one foot, jumps while spinning, or jumps like a frog, then do it!

Bat Wing Swing

Make sure you are in a big open space for this one! First, put your arms out to the side while standing, like you have two wings. Next, dip one wing down, and one wing up in the air, so that your arms are in a diagonal. Now run 10 steps flying forward to the right side THEN 10 steps running toward the left side. You can also start screeching like a bat for some extra Halloween flare.

WOW! Now you’re looking and feeling EXTRA SPOOKY! We hope you and your family enjoyed grooving your way through these Halloweeny moves. Have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

“My baby won’t move out of sitting! She just wants to sit and play and gets mad if we lie her down to play!”

Learning to Sit

It’s an exciting moment when your baby starts sitting all by themselves. At some point between 5-8 months babies developing typically will gain the postural control to sit hands free and play with toys. 

It’s a huge milestone and a big one to celebrate!

Here’s a photo of the first time my daughter, Rebekah, sat by herself. She sat just long enough for me to snap a quick pic!

You can see how tentative she looks here!

Rebekah is using her hands to help her balance here.

She’s not quite ready to sit and play with toys with both hands, watch the dog running back and forth, or reach for something.

Perhaps a big giggle would knock her over at this point!

This is a great time to play in sitting with a little support, such as in a laundry basket or a box.

The more filled the basket, the easier it will be to balance. For more challenge, try wiggling the laundry basket or give your baby a ride moving the basket back and forth.

You can also use large toys where your baby can use one hand to balance and the other to like this one.

Many of the push toys have a side to play on- park it against a wall of the couch so it won’t move and your baby can sit and play with it.

A big toy that fits in between your babies legs in ring sit so they balance with their hands on the toy, rather than hands on the floor can help sitting balance get better and better. 

Sitting Master!

When babies become more experienced sitters, they can look in all directions without it impacting their balance, they can play with toys with both hands and they can reach in all directions.

This is when you’ll see your baby experimenting with banging toys together and using both hands to manipulate their toys.

Next Steps

Once we’ve mastered the sitting milestone, now what?

In sitting, we want to see your baby shift their weight forward and back, left and right, while they’re playing in sitting. 

They will learn this naturally during play. 

While they’re shifting their weight to each side to get the things they want, your baby will learn to move from a ring sit position like above to other positions, such as ring sit to side sit.

Babies will also move from sitting down to their bellies too. 

Here are some examples of playing in sitting that leads to next steps and moving in and out of sitting:

This give babies the opportunities to practice moving between positions from sitting to belly and from sitting to hands and knees. 

All of this movement out of sitting creates separation from the babies’ lower legs, hips, and core, building flexibility and postural control. 

This is getting the baby ready for all of the milestones that come next!

The stage is being set for crawling and walking!

Happy Sitters

What are happy sitters?

Happy sitters are babies who achieve the exciting sitting milestone that we’re chatting about, but then they bask in the glory of sitting and don’t keep moving along in the developmental process. 

Our therapists at Kid PT see this all the time.

These babies figure out how to communicate to their parents to place them in sitting. These babies will pull toys towards them using a blanket and will have siblings bring them the things they want. They are so smart and problem ways to keep things in their comfort zone!

We call these babies “happy sitters” because they’re happy sitting there, but aren’t happy exploring other ways to move. 

Although learning to sit by themselves is fantastic, it should happen alongside:

• Moving in circles on their bellies
• Rolling 
• Moving from sitting to bellies
• Moving from ring sit to other sitting positions 

If your baby is sitting all by themselves, but they aren’t doing the other movements listed above, your baby may be a happy sitter. 

What happens if you don’t intervene?

The longer you wait, the harder it is to promote more movement. 

Variety of movement is one of the big keys in motor development.

If you are worried that your baby may be a happy sitter, come in for a free screening with one of our physical therapists and we can give you tips to get your baby out of this phase and onto moving and exploring their world!

At Kid PT we are passionate about the courageous lives of the children and young adults we support. September is Muscular Dystrophy Awareness month and we want to share with you some of the specifics of this condition we know so well.

What is Muscular Dystrophy?

Muscular dystrophy is a progressive, muscle wasting disease. It is caused by a mutation of the gene that is responsible for making the dystrophin protein. Dystrophin is important in providing stability to the muscle cells as it acts as an anchor between the inner parts and the outer layer of the cell. When this protein is absent or damaged, the muscle cells will break open easily which leads to muscle cell death. This can affect all the muscles in the body including the muscles used for walking, talking, breathing, swallowing, and even the muscles of the heart. 

There is a spectrum among the varied types of  muscular dystrophy that range in severity, location of muscles affected, type of gene mutation, and when symptoms begin from early childhood to adulthood. Specifically, today we will discuss Duchenne Muscle Dystrophy (DMD) as it is one of the most common types. About 15,000 boys in the US have DMD and there are about 300,000 cases worldwide. DMD occurs primarily in boys and the onset of muscle weakness is typically noticed by ages 3-5. Boys with DMD typically will lose their ability to walk around the age of 10-12 years old and have a life expectancy that extends into the mid 20s and early 30s.

Management of DMD:

Due to the wasting of muscles and reduced dystrophin throughout the body, individuals with DMD are at increased risk for fractures, scoliosis, falls, heart disease, difficulty breathing, skin breakdown, learning disabilities, respiratory infections, difficulty swallowing, and other complications. Management of muscular dystrophy requires collaboration of a multidisciplinary team in order to address the multiple systems that are impacted by DMD. Some of the key players on the care team are primary care physicians, cardiologists, pulmonologists, neurologists, psychologists, orthopedists, respiratory therapists, dieticians, nutritionists, nurses, physiatrists, physical/ occupational/ speech therapists, and social workers. As there is no known cure, treatment traditionally consists of use of steroids, respiratory support, supplements, and a variety of medications and equipment to manage the varied accompanying symptoms. Despite these problems, we’ve seen such vibrant joy in victories small and large as these young people reach goals they may have lost hope for.

How PT contributes:

Physical therapy is very different for people with DMD compared to the general public as certain strengthening activities can be harmful to the integrity of their muscles. Physical therapists are key players in monitoring the disease progression, implementing an appropriate home stretching program, educating families and schools on the capabilities of those with DMD, and recommending the use of night splints. As physical therapists are movement specialists, they assist clients with DMD and their families by providing activity modification recommendations, preserving optimal joint mobility and tissue flexibility, recommending environmental modifications, ensuring trunk and ribcage mobility for breathing and also ease of movement, monitoring and managing scoliosis, and recommending and adjusting appropriate mobility aids and assistive devices when walking requires too much energy demands and becomes a safety concern. The physical therapist’s goal is to help the child or adult with DMD to stay as mobile as possible and conserve energy in order to access varied settings from their home to school to places of amusement including sporting events, concerts, amusement parks, and travel destinations with the highest level of independence and safety as possible without overdoing it and causing undue damage. We’ve seen social engagement, connection with others, pursuing activities of interest, and reaching personal goals bring meaning and joy to the lives of our clients and are privileged to be part of the process to help our clients with DMD live to the fullest. 

Promising Research Developments:

Research has led to significant progress towards discovering effective treatments for DMD. Today adults with DMD are living longer and maintaining independent mobility for longer periods of time compared to only a few decades ago. The advances in research that have been made continue to improve the quality of life of people with DMD. More breakthroughs are on the horizon as new gene-based therapies and exon skipping treatments are being developed which have the potential of reducing and halting disease progression. At Kid PT we are always on team hope that the future for those living with DMD will continue to brighten and that our role as therapists will continue to evolve with these advances in technology and research.

Resources for Information and Donations 

For more information on DMD and also foundations that you can donate to support both the research and children and adults with DMD see below: