Does anyone give their baby vitamin D?

[Gemmitygem]

I had my DS 6 weeks ago, in Belgium, and they're telling me to give him drops of vitamin D. (already giving him drops of Vitamin K)

Is anyone else doing this and do you really have to?
Don't want to give him anything unnecessary. I'm breastfeeding and taking pregnacare...

Yes - DS has had vitamin drops (Tri-Vi-Sol) since he was 8 weeks old (now 14 months)

We are in Chicago and were told, iirc, that breastfed babies here can suffer from Rickets in the winter due to lack of Vitamin D. Or rather, that the body needs sunlight to breakdown vitamin D into a useful form & babies don't get exposed to sufficient sunlight in the winter because it's too cold to go out. I think it's added to formula so is less of a concern for ff babies.

Bit waffly, but HTH

I live in France and have been dutifully giving DS Vit D drops since birth, as ordered by doctors here. He's now 20 mths old and I've decided to cut down, giving it three times a week rather than every day. The justification I was given was the same as mamama's: as we now avoid exposing babies to the sun, rickets has apparently been reappearing in Europe. Hence the addition of Vit D to formula milk, and the drops for bf babies. Not sure if it's just because it's a kind of national recommendation, but when DS was born, even though we lived in a very sunny, sub-tropical climate (French overseas département in the Indian Ocean), I was still advised to give him the drops, perhaps because I was obviously going to be going to even greater lengths to keep DS out of the sun than if I had lived in, say Belgium, where winter or early spring sun is unlikely to cause harm to kids, and therefore DS's ability to absorb Vit D would be severely diminished. Sounds as if the French and the Belgians are issuing the same guidelines... I'm not one for giving him anything unnecessary, but the explanation did seem reasonable at the time.

Common in Switzerland too - in fact our paed was shocked it wasn't given in UK as a matter of course(visions of ricketts in the East End) . However the majority of Uk babies get formula sometime during their first year to which it is added. Exposure to direct sunlight, ie hatless outdoors, encourages the body to absorb it naturally but you need about 20 mins each day iirc and the climate doesn't make it practical.

All the different countries I've had babies in recommend vit D drops from 10 days to 1 year. I've never heard of carrying on until 20 months.