As a parent, your child’s health is one of your highest priorities. But for single parents, keeping kids healthy can be a real challenge because you’re always busy.
It just seems like you never get a break. So how are you supposed to manage everything else and still make time to safeguard your children’s health?
Below are a few tips to help you find a way.
Enlist Help
Being a single parent isn’t easy, but just because you feel alone, doesn’t mean you’re alone. While everybody’s situation is different, it’s likely you have some friends and family members who are willing to help.
All you have to do is ask. If your child’s other parent is still in the picture, then make sure he or she gets involved and helps share the responsibility.
Your relationship with your ex might be over, but if he or she still wants to be active in your child’s life, then do your best to get them involved.
It might seem weird at first, but it’ll improve after a while.
Set Bedtime Rules and Consistently Enforce Them
This is why having a consistent bedtime is so important for children.
Going to bed on time and getting a full night’s sleep helps your kids to be healthier, but it also helps your mornings go a lot smoother.
Well-rested kids – and moms or dads – wake up more easily and make it more likely everyone can get to school and work on time without daily drama. That just gets everyone off to a better start every morning and sets the tone for the whole day.
Prepare Healthy Foods in Batches
Healthy eating is a challenge for every family. For single parents, it sometimes seems impossible to find the money and time to buy and prepare healthy meals.
But there are other single parents out there making it happen, and you can do it too.
One of the best ways to eat nutritiously is to cook healthy meals in batches when you have a few hours of free time. Then you can just warm up the leftovers throughout the week.
It can actually be a fun time for the kids too. Older kids can help with peeling and chopping veggies.
Younger kids can help with washing veggies and setting the table. In fact, younger kids really enjoy doing grown up things in the kitchen, so give it a try and see what things they can safely handle.
Preschedule Health Checkups
One of the most important things you can do to ensure your kids’ health and development is to keep up with their regularly scheduled checkups with the doctor and Tampa, FL dentist or your local dentist. Your pediatrician will have a schedule of vaccine shots for your child along with regular checkups.
Your dentist should be performing a checkup and thorough cleaning about every six months. Plan these appointments as far in advance as possible to make it easier to coordinate with your employer or for your ex to do the same.
Find Creative Ways to Squeeze Exercise into Your Day
With today’s modern gym culture, many people have forgotten that physical exercise isn’t just something that happens at a gym. There are lots of ways for your kids to be active, whether playing outside, shopping at the grocery store, carrying the groceries in from the car or even doing chores around the house.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, and you don’t even have to call it exercise. Just get them up off the couch and do stuff. You’d be surprised how many calories your kids can burn in a day just by being kids.
Few things in your life are more important to you than your kids and their health. As a single parent, it might be incredibly difficult just to make ends meet, but with a little creativity and planning, you’ll find ways to build healthy habits and routines into your kids’ lives.
They’ll appreciate it and thank you for it – someday!
