I get a headaches; all caused by my children jumping on the bed every night. People always said that children become over active is due to too much sugar intake. Is it true?

Talking about sugar, I don’t mind if sugar make my children active. But I have lots more concern regarding the type of sugar. Nowadays we are exposed to processed food where manufacturers put in additional sugar mercilessly.

In children’s products there are even more sugar included, but written as ‘carbohydrate’ rather than ‘sugar’. Ohhh that’s so tricky, isn’t it? Carbohydrate, when broken down, it forms glucose, a type of sugar. Too much sugar in their food won’t harm if it just make these children extremely active, but it gives more:

• Obesity crisis
• Dental problem
• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Heart disease and stroke

Because of that, I’ve been looking everywhere for food for children with no sugar added, and finally I found one! Speaking bout milk, mind you that not every child suitable to the fresh milk (UHT,etc) because the high protein in it meant for grow ups and elder children. So if you opt for formula, this new Anmum formula has NO SUGAR ADDED. That’s means the children won’t be super active every time they drink their most important nutrition intake which is their milk.

There are a few types of sugars that have different names in food labels. Most food labels will not mention “sugar” outright. Here are some of the common sugar types in food labels you need to know before feeding children with it.

• Corn Syrup Solids
• Glucose Syrup Solids
• Sucrose

Having said all that, the new Anmum No Sugar Added formula has literally, totally, absolutely no added sugar. No cheating either with using different terms to hide sugar in the milk! With that, don’t have to get headaches anymore – no more jumping on bed, running crazy everywhere and climbing up and down the chair, tables and stairs.

Enough about sugar; now I want to share my experience of feeding my children when I had a problem with milk supply during pregnancy.  Hafiy was 7 months old when I got pregnant with the second one, Fahry. As my hormones dwindled, my breast milk depleted, while Hafiy was not even 1 years old and still need to be breastfed. I contacted lactation counselors and a lactation specialist to solve the problem, but their advise was ‘the body is preparing for another baby, as well as the breast. So don’t push it because it is really natural that milk supply would drop during pregnancy’. They advised me to find other alternatives and focus on my pregnancy instead.

History repeated itself when I got pregnant with the third one even before Fahry weaned off. It was difficult back then to find another lady to wet-nurse my babies so we decided to introduce them to another source of milk, which was milk powder.

During the introduction, called transition process, I did some own reading to find the suitable way to introduce milk powder to my breastfeeding baby, so that he wouldn’t face any difficulty, such as constipation.

I used this guideline during that transition period to ensure everything was fine:

• Transition period should happen gradually in 1-2 weeks
• The transition should occur when baby is in good health
• The switching should be done in day feedings, not night feedings.

Lucky that I still had frozen breastmilk for him. So what I did was:

Day 1 to Day 3 –

Morning : frozen EBM
Noon : milk powder
Evening : frozen EBM
Night : frozen EBM

Day 4 to Day 6 –

Morning : frozen EBM
Noon : milk powder
Evening : milk powder
Night : frozen EBM

Day 7 to Day 10

Morning : milk powder
Noon : milk powder
Evening : milk powder
Night : frozen EBM

Day 11 to Day 14

All feedings are milk powder

The table is to give time for the baby to get used to the new milk introduced to him.

Initially, I wanted to introduce Hafiy to fresh milk and even milk powder, but since Hafiy has cow milk intolerance, he has to take soy milk instead. He suffered severe rashes, diarrhea and fever every time we gave him cow milk.

However, for Fahry it was quite easy because he is now 1 year and half, already taking solid foods and had no problem with other drinks. But he still needed his milk, so I have to give him milk powder as well. When I had to stop breastfeeding Fahry and switch to milk powder, I started with another brand, but when Fahry turned 1 year old I switched to Anmum Essentials. I wanted Fahry to take the No Sugar Added formula as soon as possible since dealing with two active children and one baby is not an easy job.

When it was time to change from one formula to another, use another method other than the one I used when changing from breastmilk to milk powder. Mixed portions of the new formula with the old and eventually in a week, the child is used to the new formula. Here is a little table on how to do it.

• Days 1 to Day 2: 2 parts old + 1 part new
• Days 3 to Day 4: 1 part old + 1 part new
• Days 5 to Day 6: 1 part old + 2 parts new
• Day 7: All new

For parents who want to change their child’s milk (due to situation that you HAVE TO), be it from breastmilk to milk powder, or from one brand milk powder to another, make sure to use the transition period rules to avoid any constipation or diarrhea for the child. From one milk to another, the composition is varies, and some babies are so fussy to changes.

Glad that our transition was happened smoothly.