Chewable Vitamins Help Picky Kids Get Great Nutrition

Posted by Kate W on Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

I breastfed my daughter exclusively until she was five months old. Breast milk has many wonderful qualities. It helps very young children build strong immune systems (my daughter has only just now caught her first cold at the age of nine months). It provides incredible and well-balanced nutrition. The act of breastfeeding helps build a bond between mother and child. Even the mother can benefit from the breastfeeding relationship. Studies have shown that moms who breastfeed have lower long-term instances of many illnesses including breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers. One thing breast milk does lack, however, is vitamin D. So, in addition to making sure I brought my newborn daughter outside to get a little sun every day, I also needed to give her a liquid vitamin supplement which she absolutely loathed.

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I couldn’t really blame her. After all, pretty much 24/7 she had access to this great, sweet and tasty milk. And then twice a day she was forced to ingest the contents of a dropper filled with some of the foulest-smelling liquid I have ever encountered in 31 years. Many supplements have that vitamin smell; kind of earthy and chalky. This was that smell magnified to infinity. It was nearly a relief when my daughter had to switch to formula after proving unable to gain weight consistently on my milk. Formula doesn’t smell like a bouquet of flowers either, but it is miles better than the smell of liquid vitamins, and contains plenty of vitamin D, so we were able to discontinue her supplement.

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As my daughter gets older, I will definitely strive to give her a well-balanced diet so she gets access to a wide variety of nutrients. But because I am no nutritionist, I will definitely be revisiting the idea of vitamins to help her feed in the gaps. My parents did a lot of great things for me as a kid. I always lived in a nice house, had fashionable clothes and attended fantastic schools. But we ate a lot of pre-packaged snacks and microwaveable dinners, and I had barely even heard of a multivitamin until I was in college. It was hard for me to get in the habit of taking them regularly after that, especially with my aversion to swallowing pills. I think my poor nutrition as a kid definitely contributed to a lot of the health problems I deal with today.

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My daughter is advanced in every way except that at the age of nine months, she still lacks teeth. But eventually, they will grow in, and by that time she’ll be old enough to supplement her diet with a chewable multivitamin formulated especially for kids. Here’s hoping it smells better than her first vitamin experience!

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