Do you give your breastfed baby vitamin drops?

[deathb4decaf]

DD will be 6mo soon and we're going to start weaning. I've been hearing a bit about vitamin drops but hv didn't mention it last time I saw her, and I forgot to ask! What do you do? Tia

I do, from 6 months. (We use Abidec, which I think tastes disgusting, but the children love it )

Yes. Vit d. All children get them free here (Sweden.)

Yes I do, from six months onwards.
The boots own brand tropical ones contain omega three which tempted me in but they stain everything bright orange.

Thank you, I'll avoid the boots ones then!

For the purpose of balance, DD was ebf til 6 months then I continued to bf her when we started blw and she never had vitamin drops.

Nope, I continued to bf on demand along side baby led weaning so didn't think necessary

Yes we use the NHS Healthy Start drops. They are approx £3 from a pharmacy.

Yes. The effects of overly low iron and vitamin D seemed worth spending a few quid to avoid, and it saved us having to worry about how much he was eating etc. We got the Wellbaby drops.

He still enjoys having them - it's also been incredibly useful recently to persuade him to take his antibiotics, DP measures out the medicine in the syringe then slurps up a ml or so of the vitamin liquid. Hospital suggested mixing with juice etc which he point-blank refused to touch so if we hadn't had him already used to taking tasty vitamins from a syringe he'd have had to stay in over Christmas on the drip.

A couple of the posters above have got it the wrong way around I'm afraid - if your formula fed baby has more than about a pint of formula a day it's fortified with enough vitamins that you don't need extra drops. breastmilk doesn't contain the extra vitamins in high enough levels after you get to around six months so if you're breastfeeding whilst weaning then the advice is to give vitamins too.

link to NHS advice

Thanks for replies, I'm carrying on with bf at the moment. (dd gave me no choice!) I will get some drops. Surprised hv didn't mention it though.

Yes, official advice is bf babies need vits from 6 months. Wellkid ones are good as they have vit D3 (many others have older version of vit D which isn't as readily absorbed). I mix it in her porridge.

I will be - ds is 11 weeks --will be 3 months on the 16th) and I've bought drops suitable from 3 months (Holland and Barrett) for him.
My hv has constantly advised me to buy drops for him

Nope. Bf'd past a year and they all have remained upright since. ;)

It is clear that children are deficient in Vitamin D and that low Vitamin D is associated with a whole host of medical conditions (not necessarily causative but the body of evidence is growing). That's why pregnant women and children are advised to take it.

I did.