There are a lot of differing opinions regarding giving your baby a vitamin D supplement. Only if you live in Alaska--or Canada (love the sweeping geographical verdict)--some say. Just take a vitamin D supplement yourself and it'll pass through your milk to the baby, my friend told me. All a baby needs is a few minutes a day in direct sunlight, claim the old-schoolers. The Baby 411 Blog has a nice post that sums up the vitamin D situation.
Baby R's own pediatrician recommended a vitamin supplement for babies--which I did most dutifully go out and buy. And which, I acknowledge, has been sitting a few squirts short of full at the back of the medicine cabinet for months. Why? Because, at the time, the only supplement seemingly available was a foul-smelling liquid (apparently, it's the vitamin B that's the stinker) multivitamin called Poly-Vi-Sol. You had to give a whole dropper's worth every day, and it was so hard to administer to my little baby because she absolutely hated it: her whole face would scrunch up and turn bright red and she'd repeatedly stick her tongue out, as if to get rid of a bad taste in her mouth--not to mention the fact that she pretty much spit out the majority of what I painstakingly was trying to squirt in.
[Editor's note: Can I interrupt this post to say that my baby is crying her guts out right now and it's extremely hard to think, let alone blog? I've tried everything: fed her, changed her diaper, read her a story, held and cuddled her. Nothing. Hated it all (except the feeding). For any new moms out there, this kind of thing happens and the intense stress it invokes will churn your stomach and shave five years off your lifespan.]
But then I found out that last year, the AAP had upped their recommended vitamin D dose for children from 200 IU to 400 IU. Worried, I did a little online research and thanks to the La Leche League forum, learned about something called Carlson Baby Ddrops. You just need to give baby one drop--applied on the nipple, for example, for breastfeeding moms. Sounds easy and painless, and I'm going to try to find it tomorrow, if the stress of my still-wailing baby doesn't first cause my brain to explode.
Update: I found the drops at a local supermarket and wrote a short review on it.
Hi. To be transparent upfront, I work on contract projects for The Ddrops Company. I`m also a Mom of a 19-month old son, and I give him 1 drop of Baby Ddrops every evening in his before bed snack, and that's all he needs for his full daily requirements of Vitamin D. How easy is that !
ReplyDeleteI hope you were able to find the Baby Ddrops. If not, you can purchase it from http://www.well.ca . There is no shipping fee if shipped in Canada, but I think there is a fee if shipped in the US.
You might also be interested in knowing that there was a recent study showing that there is a link between Vitamin D and the common cold. You can read a press release on the study here; http://www.ddrops.ca . If you have any feedback on the product, once you've tried it, please let the company know.
... and it will get easier as your baby gets older. They cry much less and are able to communicate what is wrong. This helps Mom comfort baby much easier. Best of luck to you.
Hi Nat,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the info and the encouraging words. I am very happy with the Baby Ddrops and blogged about it recently, in fact.