vitamins for 13 month old

[Mama2boys]

Hi All,

Am planning to start weaning DS off Formula and move to Cows milk, and was wondering if Vitamins are important/necessary.

And if you do give Vitamins, which ones and what form?

Many thanks,
Mukta

[Seona1973]

I didnt buy vitamins for ds (17 months) but I think the ones you buy for kids are a mix of vitamins A, C, D and E.  DD (4) does have chewy ones but they are for kids over the age of 3 (I do bite a bit off for ds so he gets to copy her and have his vitamins too).  You can buy liquid ones for younger babies/toddlers in the supermarket, chemist, etc

[amywiz24]

My pediatrician said DS did not need vitamins since he is growing as expected (despite having his normal toddler moments of eating and not eating and eating healthy and not eating healthy).
The only vitamins that I know of that are appropriate for this age group are the liquid poly-vi-sol (sp?) and they smell terrible--and would guess they taste terrible too. My DS won't take them.

[Mama2boys]

Thanks ladies,s thats exactly my problem, the liquid ones are so foul smelling and tatsing that DS throws up everything including his meal. So I might follow is growth and if he is as expected will forget vitamins till he is old enough to chew!

[Mommymac]

I would say they are important, but maybe not needed every day. Depends how your LO eats. If they like variety they may not need the vitamin, if they are consuming a lot of milk and not much solids I would reccommend a vitamin since pasturization kills most of the natural goodness in cows milk, thats why they add back vitamin A and D. Vitamins that have whole foods in them are more easily absorbed. If you have a health food store near you that would be the best place to get whole food vitamins, most grocery stores and places like WalMart only sell synthetic vitamins which are not as easily absorbed by the body.

[Mama2boys]

Thank you!

[trisharushbrook]

My girls have been on polyvisol since birth....yes it's foul smelling and gross but I put it into their milk and they just drink it down. They were preemie though and in catch up mode for a long time so that was the reasoning - I asked Doc about it at last visit and she said to keep giving it to them esp now that they have started walking - they need more vit. 
Touch wood, besides one bout of pneumonia for one of them neither of them have been very sick in the last year.  I think they each got maybe one or two colds and that was it.   Not sure if that is down to the Vitamins or not but am happy to keep giving them for now.

[Mama2boys]

thanks, might try that, just not sure if Ds will run away from milk permanantly if he does not like the vit in his milk, so was hoping to keep the two things seperate but mixing in milk might be the only answer.

[trisharushbrook]

try something like yoghurt if you are afraid of that.  Last thing you need is him thinking his milk is yucky!

Maybe mix yoghurt and apple sauce so there is a enough sweet flavour to drown the vit taste and add it to that.....or maybe to orange juice if he drinks that.... not sure it's possible to drown that taste though...it's pretty bad.  Mine have had it all along so they don't know any different.