Vitamin drops for ebf baby during weaning.

[Babylonmood]

HV said I needed to give my 7m old vitamin drops as she is still getting only bm as well as food. I read a thread here a while ago where someone had been advised similarly. It was met with incredulity. This must be new advice. Anyone else with experience? My reaction is that I thought bf was the answer to god, the universe and everything? surely no supplementation is necessary?

It's the iron. Babies are born with a store from you and it lasts around 6 months. Also vitamin d iirc - many of us in the UK are deficient.

I live in a city with the highest rate of ricketts, so we are all given vitamin drops free of charge for new babies.

I never bothered with them, ds was bf, had a healthy, very varied diet and was taken outdoors, so I figured he was ok. No harm in using them though, so it's up to you. As with all these things, it's guidelines and it's up to you if you follow them!

Thanks. I was aware of the iron thing and was making sure she got iron rich food. I didn't know about the vitamin D issue. . Have you any idea how much time outside is required? I'll probably get the drops anyway but I know bit supplements are not always absorbed brilliantly so don't want to rely in them completely.

Here's the NHS info:
www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/vitamins-for-children.aspx

If you are formula feeding (at least 400 ml a day, iirc), then that is supplemented with the recommended vitamins already.

We are given healthy start vitamins free of charge here. I give my four month old ebf baby some when I remember, but I'm not hung up on it. I take my own HS vitamins daily.

I think that the baby vits are mainly for vitamin D, although they also contain A and C. I read something interesting lately about D and immune function in babies, and it made me think that perhaps it wouldn't be bad to supplement, especially in winter. We do go out everyday, but obviously he is pretty well covered up when we go out.

We tried. I tried. then I just made sure DS got sun everyday. Iron in breastmilk is bio available so I wasn't worried about that

every child between 6 months and the age of 5 is advised to supplement with vitamins A, C and D, it is nothing to do with iron. The most important vitamin to supplement is D due to a rise in rickets.

If you are bf then you are supposed to supplement vitamin D too

It's not the iron. There's no iron in basic vitamin drops. You can buy multivitamin/mineral drops with iron in as well but it's actually not recommended to supplement with iron unless under specific medical advice - you can get too much.

It's vitamins A,C and D. D is so much of a concern that where I am in London, the council now give free vit D to all children under 5, pregnant women and up to 1 year after the baby is born.

As others have said, all children age 6 months - 5 years are recommended to have vitamin supplements, it's just that if you formula feed then the supplement is included in the formula. If you don't, then you give the supplement separately.

And as ilovepowerhoop said, all bfing women should take vitamin D themselves - 10 micrograms per day.

HTH

Did you delay cord clamping when your baby was born? Babies who had delayed cord clamping have much higher levels of iron to last them than those that don't, far longer than 6 months.

Does your baby eat a good varied diet? If the answer to the above are both yes, vitamins are rather unnecessary.

My daughter was so uninterested in food I chose to give her liquid vitamins, I chose Wellkid vitamin drops, it has iron and vit D and she loves the taste.