Close your eyes and think about what you hear when you are with a litter of brand-new-to-this-world puppies. Tiny little yips and squeals, maybe even a few little grunts. Now think about what they are doing. Likely their eyes are still closed and, if awake, they are crawling all over each other, mostly trying to find Mom and the next meal. They are utterly helpless.
Then imagine what they are like about a week or so later. Their eyes are open and their crate looks like a rough and tumble mess. All they seem to do is sleep, eat, and wrestle each other, a pattern that continues well into their 3rd even 4th, or 5th year for some dogs.
Food, sleep, and wrestling are what every mammal on the planet, including the human ones, innately crave in the early years. Each of the three is essential for proper development physically, socially, and emotionally.
Food
As a culture, we have become hyper-focused on the food we feed our dogs demonstrated by the meteoric rise of companies like Farmer’s Dog, Nom Nom, and Ollie which offer a fresh food alternative to kibble.
On the other hand so many are still ok with snacks of Goldfish, pouches of mushed up fruit, (learn more about the very big downside of pouches here), and squeezable yogurts, loading our kids up with hundreds of empty calories (mostly sugar).
Fact: every snack preschoolers consume can contain as much as 200 calories which means three snacks a day delivers more than half the total calories a young child needs each day. Wasting those precious calories in sugar packed or carb dense calories can lead not only to grumpy kids but they can also cause children to develop a palate that craves sugary and empty calories rather than whole food, nutrient-dense calories their busy bodies can actually use. Learn more here.
As my grandmother said, “I am not a short order cook, if you are hungry you will eat the meal I made you. If you aren’t, you will not starve and there is another meal coming in a few hours. We will try again.”
Sleep
Puppies sleep and sleep hard. Their sleep gives them the power to play when they wake up.
Children desperately need sleep, but all too often we don’t want to fight the bedtime battle. But that creates a downward spiral into more painful battles.
Fact: If children are sleep-deprived regularly, their brains never get that chance to reset, and school becomes more difficult. Children who increase their nightly sleep by just 18 minutes five times a week improve their cognition as demonstrated in their report cards. And by the time they are in high school 15 to 19-year-olds who go to bed between 10 pm and 11 pm have higher GPAs while those with the least sleep have significantly lower GPAs.
But beyond happy preschoolers and report cards, lack of sleep increases a child’s risk of becoming obese. Children who consistently get less sleep than is appropriate for their age are 4 times more likely to be obese. And preschoolers who go to bed between 8-9 pm are 16% more likely to be obese 10 years later while those who went to bed after 9 pm are 23% more likely to be obese 10 years later. (Read more here and here.)
Wrestling and play
What happens when puppies play? They have very sharp teeth, which means sometimes someone gets hurt. When that happens there is a reckoning: the hurt player lashes out or pulls back or returns the favor. No matter what happens, play stops.
But puppies, like humans, don’t want play to stop, so they will do whatever it takes to keep play going. This means learning from those mistakes. They learn to control their teeth, they learn how hard they can nip, they learn how quickly and where they can swipe a paw. This helps puppies learn the social skills they will need as adults.
Fact: Children learn the same thing in their play. Through the trial and error of their play they learn all kinds of social cues and skills: body language and facial expressions and how to respond to each. They learn leadership and when it is better to be a follower. They learn goal setting, empathy, patience, self-control, teamwork, resilience, problem-solving, and so much more. More importantly, these skills, practiced in play are skills children need when it is time for adulting. Skills they need to be good employees, good employers, leaders on the field or in the board room, good partners, good parents, and good friends.
All mammals need a lot of the three basics: good food, lots of rest, and plenty of play. Let’s take a cue from the puppy playbook. Put the technology away, load up on whole foods, and go to bed early.
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