By Mama S. LeDish

 

One of the moms on Team Vivi is going through an adoption. A process that comes with overwhelming joy along with some challenges.  There is the legal process, the financial and emotional investment and waiting for the whole procedure to come to fruition.

 

After all is said and done, the transition of adopting or fostering a child requires planning, research, and, ideally, support. As with all children there is an adjustment period and a continuous learning curve, but with adoptive children there are different factors that play into how you integrate your new child into your home.  Not all children are adopted from birth and often times, regardless of whether or not it is an International adoption, there will be culture shock to overcome.

 

One issue she brought to our attention is that foster and adoptive parents often face a challenge transitioning the child from their previous diet.  In the case of International adoption, the child might be used to a whole different cuisine all together.  Other children may be used to high fat or high sugar diets consisting mainly of processed foods.  Children who are malnourished or used to a bland diet may “overdose” on treats that they had not previously experienced, especially if the adoptive parents are overcompensating.

 

Here are some resources to help parents navigate through this challenge so parents can enjoy more time getting to know their new addition to the family.

 

“Feeding children healthy meals and snacks on a daily basis is a challenge for any parent, but parents of a newly adopted, and perhaps undernourished, infant or toddler may truly find themselves put to the test.”

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=2124

 

Discusses digestive issues with newly adopted children. “In the recently adopted child, constipation is often blamed on iron, when in fact it’s more likely to be from the stress of travel and transition, dietary changes, and perhaps dehydration.”

http://www.rainbowkids.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=74

 

An all-inclusive website offering a plethora of information for nutrition specific to adopted children.

 

According to site: While foster and adopted children may appear healthy on the outside, they may very well be deficient in key nutrients that could impact future growth and brain development. These deficiencies develop because many vulnerable children do not receive proper nutrition in their early years. The most common culprits include:

• Insufficient prenatal nutrition
• Malnutrition in infancy
• Post-adoption growth spurts

http://adoptionnutrition.org/

 

We would like to recommend our very own www.ViviLeDish.com as a tool to help foster and adoptive parents with nutrition efforts.  We provide a FREE daily, digestible dose of  kitchen and wellness education for children ages 3-8. Our site is designed to create family interaction rather than take away from it. With daily interactive activities, free coloring pages, recipes, and the cutest little nutrition tracker you ever did see, Vivi LeDish has the potential to revolutionize the ways moms nag their children about eating vegetables in a manner designed to establish healthy habits and warm memories that will last a lifetime.

 

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the bloggers on Mama LeDish are theirs alone and do not represent the opinions of Fifi Delish Holding or its subsidiaries, affiliates, sponsors. We do not claim to be experts who have all the answers, we’re just sorting through these issues just like everyone else.  Fifi Delish Holding and its subsidiaries are not not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the bloggers or the content we share from the web.