Do Omega 3 supplements help calm a child's behaviour? does he need omega 6 too?

[mumandlovingit]

my son is 5 and im starting to give him Haliborange omega 3 fish oil syrup.does anyone else use this?

has it helped anyone's child calm down and concentrate and help behaviour?

do i need omega 6 too or will this on its own be enough?

he eats a good diet but not any fish.he eats meat and alot of fruit and vegetales.

he has always been abit hyper and into everything and his teacher tells me its hard to get him to sit still and concentrate and not be distracted.i was wondering if anyone has used these thingss and its helped them.

any advice gratefully received.

I've used fish oils (which my DCs LOVE bizarrely) for about 2 years now. DS (4.8) used to buzz about and not stick with anything for more than 2 minutes when he was 1st started nursery aged nearly 3. He's at school now and behaves pretty normally for his age, can concentrate etc. Now I don't know if the fish oils helped or it's just his age. Lots of people recommend them though for hyper children and like yours, mine won't touch fish, so it makes me feel better

HI, my DD is 4 now and I started these when she went through a very fidgety period at 3. They did wonders here ( at least something did!). I then stopped them but we moved house, DD2 started talking back to her and she was due to start school so we put her back on them 4 mths ago.
I will not be stopping them anytime soon..
Hope that helps and hope they help you too. We feel that we have back the daughter that seemed to be hiding underneath all the fuss and backchat.

sorry you are deluding yourselves

IME and IMO they don't work

probably quite good for you but not a magic bullet to change behaviour

Hi Enid you may very well be rightand obviously have evidence for this BUT something has worked in our case. Even if its NOT the Fish oil we feel that even if they are not settling her, they are doing her no harm either.

No I am sure no harm

but you sound dependent on them albeit psychologically

and they are expensive

I think they are the emperors new clothes personally but am probably alone in my opinion so feel free not to listen

I agree they dont make any difference, but I am bitter and twisted because they didnt do anything for DS.

The studies I know of were more to do with dyslexia than hyperactivity but the ones that found a difference involved much higher doses than are contained in the children's omega 3 suplements (and these mostly contain vitamin A and D too so don't exceed the recommended dose!).

The effects others have mentioned here could be placebo effects or could be a result of the omega 3, studies on this are mostly inconclusive at the moment from what I've found, but they certainly will not do any harm and will help with brain development and the development of neural connections.

(please don't quote me on this though, it's just what I can remember from the extensive research I did into this a while back...)

BIBIC nutritionist recommends them, she particularlyr ecommends the eye Q brand and flax oil, but i think the haliborange should be fine. I think it's more the effect that an imroved diet overall has that is the thing- including sufficient fatty acids such as Omega 3.

It made a massive difference to one of my twins - his concentration and ability at school. But he also had a good teacher that year, was getting to bed earlier and getting older so I cannot be sure but he became calmer, concentrated, looked me in the eye more etc.

My Ds is allergic to fish and seafood, and to eggs and Sesame &nuts. As these are the main dietry sources (well fish and eggs) his diet is definately deficient in them and we have been using a supplement made from seeds.

Again he was having a lot of trouble concentrating at nursery and his behavoiur was generally not good. Now whether it was a co-incidence as we were trying all sorts of things to calm his behaviour down, but after taking the oils for a few weeks his behaviour dramatically improved. this was nearly 2 year ago BTW

In any case the oils are good for brain development and I give them as I know his diet definately lacks them - the mix we use is omega 3,6 & 9. I think you need them all in the right proportions

thankyou for your responses.

i'll give it to him for a while and see if there are any changes.at least even if there isn't, they arent doing him any harm.

thankyou

DS1 is dyspraxic and dyslexic.

He takes Efalex daily.

There is a marked improvement when he takes them - his hand tremor decreases greatly, and his balance and concentration improve.

DS2 is dyslexic.

He takes Efalex daily.

There is no vast difference in him that is obviously noticeable.

In our case it would seem that the supplements help with the dyspraxic symptoms more than with the dyslexic ones - although the two 'conditions' are so closely linked anyway, that it could just be that one child reacts better to them than the other!

My daughter has been taking omega 3 supplements for about 2 weeks now and the only difference I've noticed is her behaviour seems worse not better!

I'll keep going with them until the packet is finished (unless things get even worse!) and review it from there.