My son is almost two years old so I want him to start taking a multi-vitamin. We all know that our kids aren’t going to eat everything we want them to, and some days they just aren’t too hungry. As a mom, I just want him to for sure at least get some vitamins and minerals in his body! Obviously, I want it to be as natural as possible but still get him to take it. Most of the natural varieties of vitamins are gummy vitamins, which are great, but my son’s teeth aren’t all there yet, although he’s got plenty, but he cannot chew those tough gummies properly. They do sell them in the powder chews, like our old Flintstone’s vitamins, which he tried a natural variety but those just make me a little nervous being dry and him possibly choking. I doubt it, but still, I wrote those off. Then I’m left with this dilemma, how can I get vitamins in my son that he can chew properly?
The answer! I found two diferent types of kid’s vitamins that I feel comfortable giving to him. First, there’s the Emergen-C kid’s drinkable vitamin sweetened with fructose. You always see the Emergen-C vitamins at the drug stores and also natural foods stores, but look carefully and they do make a kid’s version. My son likes the Strawberry flavored, we also tried the Strawbanana Blast flavor, which he hated. I gave that to a friend with twins close in age and they liked it while they didn’t like the Strawberry (I tried them both and am more inclined the the Strawberry as well). We have not tried the Orange Pineapple Explosion or Cherry Yumberry flavors. They’re fizzy, but easy to stir in 4-6oz of water, perfect for a sippy; and it’s a great way to get my son to drink something other than juice when he thinks he’s getting a juice! If you have toddlers you probably know a reason or two why too much juice is not a good thing:) Sometimes…they get bored with water. The Emergen-C is anywhere from $8.99 at Target to $13 or so most other places for a package of 36.
Emergen-C Kids
The other vitamin I found that I’m very happy with is Irwin Kids Berrylicious Super Multi sweetened with agave nectar, cane juice and brown rice syrup. It’s texture is more of a soft taffy texture so it’s easy for them to chew but dissolves easily as it’s also a bit powdery and vitaminish flavor (gummys taste much better but my kid eats these anyway). For 2-3 year old, you have to cut the vitamin in half. The bottle comes with 30 soft chews for around $17 per bottle. For a 2-3 year old, at least that will last you two months, so in that respect, it is cheaper than the Emergen-C unless you’re buying that at Target. Once he’s able to properly chew a gummy vitamin, I’ll probably buy those but it is nice to have an option that he can chew and I don’t need to worry. If you buy them and they’re hard, they’re probably just old.
Irwin Kid's BerryLicious Multi
Now, I don’t want your pediatrician mad at me so make sure you ask her or him if it’s okay to feed your toddler vitamins and maybe they’ll recommend something. Emergen-C will send you free samples if you get on their website - the free samples button is on the left. Their website recommends minimum age 8 for these vitamins, but I did check with my pediatrician first (yours may have a different opinion). Irwin will also send you free samples but they’re not really free as they will charge your credit card $6.99 for shipping to also send you two educational wellness CD’s. I also wanted to mention that a whole package of Emergen-C contains 400 IU of vitamin D, which is 100% of the daily RDI while a half Irwin Berrylicious contains 200 IU. Vitamin D is one of the vitamins that most recently, health experts say many of us, including toddlers, are deficient in, and that we should actually get more than the recommended levels. It’s newer research over the past year, but pretty overwhelming.
If you are a mom with a toddler and found something else equally easy to chew and good for your kid, let me know! Thanks!
