Vitamin drops and bfing past 6 months

[AngelDog]

I had a really conversation with a couple of my mummy friends recently. DS was ebf till 6 months and we have been doing BLW since (6.5m now). I was asked if I was giving him vitamin drops as ebf babies need them. I said no, he's on solids so he's not ebf. They said that vitamin drops were needed for any babies who only had bm rather than bm and formula.

That's rubbish, isn't it? It's babies who are ebf after 6 months (ie no solids) who might need vitamins, right? Can anyone tell me where I can get the 'official' line on this, please, as I'm pretty sure they won't believe me otherwise.

It made me feel a bit as there is a mindset among these mums (who do bf) that bf isn't really good enough without supplementation (whether that's with formula, early weaning or vitamns).

I also feel a bit that I'm considered slightly odd because I'm not yet talking about when I might stop. One of them made a comment that it was 'really wrong' to be bfing a toddler old enough to ask for 'Mummy milk'. I appeciate that not everyone likes the idea of bfing toddlers - and I think they're entitled to that opinion - but I felt sad that people agreed it was wrong, rather than something they personally didn't like the idea of.

When I say 'they won't believe me otherwise', I didn't mean that I wasout to prove a point and get into a fight with these friends over it - I just want to have the info at my fingertips if someone asks me again.

Most people seem to work on the basis of hearsay or bad advice, so it can be hard for the 'official' advice to be seen as any more than just another individual's poin of view.

I really really don't think vitamin drops are necessary at all, if your DS is eating, gradually, a good range of food plus milk then that's all he needs! I myself, being someone who loved shopping for this & that for my DS, did buy the vitamin drops but never once used them . I understood very quickly that they're one of those things that won't hurt but are certainly not necessary. A good way to sell things to mums is to make them feel they're necessary when in fact very little is really 'necessary' when it comes to babies. Usually with just the basics they thrive. Believe me, I have a fast growing, thriving toddler who lives on bananas, bread, blueberries & yoghurt .

Your pals are right, odd as it sounds

Formula is already supplemented - the vitamins are added at the point of manufacture.

The concern in the UK is that our modern lifestyles mean our babies don't get outside often enough to make their own vitamin D - and our sunlight is so weak in this part of the Northern hemisphere we should get out a lot more than we do. This is a potential issue especially for babies from ethnic groups with dark skins, who need more sunlight on their skin that babies with white skins.

It's hard to say what an individual bf baby might actually need - if he is white, if he gets outside a lot, has solids with vitamin D in them, and is breastfed frequently (to get more of the vit d that is in breastmilk) he may be fine. But as a blanket, public health rule, all babies who are bf after 6 mths (and who don't get the automatically-supplemented formula) benefit from vitamin drops - it's the vitamin d that counts, though the drops also contain A and C.

Your friends' other ideas on toddlers are rubbish, of course!

Interesting TikTok, didn't know this Should I be supplementing DS now at age 2 with vitamin drops? he's drinking normal cow's milk.

Well, I never! Thanks, Tiktok (I was hoping you might spot this). I stand corrected.

I'll have to make sure we have more trips out to buy chocolate excursions in the sunshine. And when he's feeding every 2 hourly at night I can cheer myself with the thought that it's booting his vitamin D levels.

Can you just get the drops from chemists?

Maria, this is what the Food Standards pages say:

www.eatwell.gov.uk/agesandstages/baby/startingsolidfoods/#cat535963

Many PCTs have a local policy of advising parents to supplement their babies after 6 mths if they are not having formula, but as the question comes up on mumsnet all the time I think it's clear it's not well-explained and many HCPs simply don't know about it. Despite this, it has been public health practice for at least 10 or 15 years.

There doesn't seem to be guidance on those pages on the upper age limit for vitamin drops, but from memory, I think the advice is to age 5.

I think you're a GP, aren't you? I think it's telling that you didn't know about this policy, too. This patchy dissemination of info is confusing for parents and HCPs.

I think the point to remember is that it's not breastmilk that's 'deficient'- we are intended to live and work out of doors a lot more than anyone does these days, and modern foods are often vitamin deficient, so the baby may move onto foods which are low in vitamin d, as well as having less breastmilk as he gets a bit older. And it's not that formula is inherently 'better ' - the supps are added to it artificially.

A side issue re the vitamin drops - I was a bit surprised to find out that the only brand on the shelf in Boots contained peanut oil (my DB is spectacularly allergic, so we were avoiding nuts at that point). Pharmacist found me another make that didn't, but maybe worth knowing if allergy might be an issue...

Thanks, tiktok and puddock, that's very helpful.

It would have been useful if the HV had told me this, but I guess I never asked for advice about introducing solids so I suppose it's an undertandable omission.

angeldog very interested in this as I've also just recently found this out (via Gill Rapley's BLW book). Am that no HV or anyone has thought fit to tell me about it (but again, I've not asked for any advice either!). After much debating, I've been persuaded by my DH to use the drops as and when the time comes (DS is 4 months) mainly as I take a daily vitamin supplement myself, despite eating a healthy diet! It's not harmful so I think it will compliment the BM and weaning.

I just wanted to agree with your sadness about a sense that BF isn't "enough" to some mums - some of my NCT friends regularly express surprise that I've never supplemented with formula and that I'm waiting until 6 months to do BLW. Four of them (out of 8) started weaning at 4 months (which seems like a massive stress to me, as they're constantly faffing about with purees and baby rice and moaning about the whole process ) because BM wasn't enough anymore.

Flip - all that weaning business is the same here - complaining that weaning early was (a) a lot of hassle and (b) their DCs weren't interested in food when they thought they should be. Well, dur...

I am considered seriously strange for waiting 6 months before solids, although I am secretly smug that DS's self-feeding skills & variety of diet are better than their babies', despite having been on solids a fortnight compared with their two months.

People are constantly surprised that my DS is so big & healthy (99th centile, up from 50th at birth) on 'only breastmilk'. It makes you wonder how the human race managed all these years, eh?

But now I'm cross at myself - I've read the Gill Rapley book but obviously managed to miss the bit about the vitamins.

Hum I know the recomendation is it give vitamin drops. But it's a blanket recomendation mainly due to the increase in dark skined people living in countries like the UK, us spending more time indoors and useing more suncream. Yes you should actualy spend sometime outside in the summer, ovously not during the middle of the day without suncream on.

There was actualy a resent arctical on this on the BBC and even the experts can't really agree on wearther it's necassery or not.

I took the apporach that as being at home with DD we get out a lot and you don't need much UV exposure. Just 20minutes a day and that's not in direct sunlight. That it was unessarcy for us to give them to her. But we are fiar skinned and it's a decision you need to take for yourself. Personlay I'm not for blanket taking things unless it's really needed.

I also believe that you can do it by taking suppliments yourself and not giving them directly to your baby.
There is lot's of usefull information on this website.
www.kellymom.com/nutrition/vitamins/vitamin-d.html

Angeldog am hoping to also feel secretly smug when our time comes to wean . Don't worry about missing the vitamin drops bit - there's a lot to take in when you're sleep deprived!

I love to hear of BF babies at the top of the charts. One of my good friends has a baby right up there, 99th centile, a really cute chunky baby, and she's a fellow exclusive breastfeeder planning to do BLW at 6 months. My own little fellow is of the long and lean variety - hovers between 9th & 25th, and I went through the stress in the early weeks about whether he was gaining well and should I top up. Stopped worrying at 10 weeks when a paediatrician we saw for an unrelated issue told me to stop stressing, ignore the scales, trust my eyes and enjoy my lean baby . Am glad I resisted the (mostly self-induced) pressure to top up.

MigGril I agree that there's discussion about whether to take them or not (especially as me and my baby are also very pale skinned). However, some research shows that in winter the sun is often too weak this far north to provide adequate vitamin d, which is why so many foods are fortified with vitamin d (so that we don't go back to the bad old days of rickets). Since we're going to be weaning starting from September I'm happy to give them to my son.

Flip - iirc it's the more northern parts of us i.e getting up towards scotland - they are missing some band of light in winter (thats really well explained on my part ) so in London you would still be okay. It's also worth bearing in mind that we store VitB.

Yes there is some new research that has been done on the elderly, as apparenlty it can effect there cordination. That we do store it up over the summer for use in winnter months. As we live in the South though I wasn't to worried about winnter sunlight as unlike the far north of Scotland we still get daylight hours.

Personly knowing what sort of chemicals are used to make a lot of these things, I'd preffer to take them myself and know that it will go through BM the give them direct to a baby.

I've worked with to many chemicals to feel safe about any artifical productes. Although it is often best not to think about it to much.