Will fish oils help my child develop?

[PSQmn]

Hello everyone :)

It's my first post here on mumsnet so please forgive me if I'm doing this completely wrong.

So just a brief overview of myself. I'm actually a father but this site seems quite useful so hope you don't mind me joining!

I have a 4 year old daughter and I was considering buying fish oil supplements to help with her development. I'm one of those typical dads that are proud of my daughter and just wondering if giving her fish oils will actually help.

I've heard conflicting information about fish oils and not really in a position to spend money that I don't have to at the moment so would love to hear some people's experiences and whether people have found these supplements help?

I'm just wondering if they're useful to give to my daughter at the moment, then I'll worry about how I'll actually manage to get her to take them :/

Thanks mumsnet, hope someone can help me on this :)

no more than getting her to eat plenty of the right kids of oily fish, but all fish is good - Salmon, Tuna ( not too much of this due to mercury) Sardines, mackerel etc -

if you can't get her to eat fish, then yes the supplements can help, but it doesn't have to be fish oils, flax/linseed seed oils contain the same Omega oils that help

adding flax seeds to soups, cakes etc is another good natural way to get the omegas into her, without supplements

The other useful thing, is to keep her on a good natural diet, cut out all the chemical food additives, such as azo dyes & benzoate preservative, artificial sweeteners, flavourings etc -

this sort of approach certainly seems to have worked with my own DD & we've never used supplements, just paid a lot of attention to her diet

good luck

Try reading Ben Goldacre on the subject

The "evidence" for these supplements is very poor, and there is little reason to think that it will provide any improvement in children who do not have any specific problems with attention span etc.