It is hard to believe that I have a little girl who is old enough to know her alphabet. She knows every letter and its sound and she has been telling me she wants to learn to read. She is only three! But she is so smart. She also uses that cleverness to talk back to me at times, which makes me nervous for when she is a teenager. She uses my own words against me already, and has the eye roll down to a tee.
It is amazing to think that just a few short years ago she was a brand new baby, so tiny and helpless. And now she is a little personality and knows so much. She seems older when I compare her to Zander and realize how much she has progressed in just the few years ahead she is. Did you guys know that 85% of brain growth happens in the first three years of life? I was just reading that the other day and it got me thinking how crucial it is that we are making sure our tiny people are getting everything they need to support that growth during those first few years of life.
There are so many things you can do to help stimulate brain development, I do puzzles with Zoey, stack blocks with Zander, do sensory activities with different textures like bath bubbles and sand and of course I read to both of them. But did you know that brain development is connected to diet as well? Experts recommend that toddlers have 70-100 mg/day of DHA, an important building block in developing the brain. Most toddlers’ diets are lacking and only get about 25% of the recommended amount. I was so shocked when I discovered that and started looking for a solution to make sure Zoey and Zander were getting as much DHA as recommended.
I had no idea how important DHA was to babies’ brain growth until I started reading about brain development!
What types of activities do you do to help stimulate brain growth for your toddlers? Have you ever considered how their diet is affecting this? Let me know your thoughts in the comments
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