Advice on Giving Multi Vitamin to 4 Month Old

The only way I got my son to take the liquid vitamin is to put it in OJ. I tasted it and the taste is so bad I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy LOL Anyway I found that OJ is the only thing that has a equally strong taste so it evened each other out. Besides OJ helps with the absorbion so it is a win win situation. I hope this helps. Good luck!

Rainbow Light makes a powdered vitamin called NutriStart Multivitamin Powder that you can mix into food. It tastes much much better, in my opinion, than Poly Vi Sol. My daughter liked it mixed into yogurt when she was a baby but you can put it in drinks as well. The recommended dose for a 6 month old baby (1/4 teaspoon) contains 200 IU of vitamin D. http://www.rainbowlight.com/

Also, to address the controversy brewing here, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Paediatric Society recommend vitamin D supplementation for all infants and children to ensure that the small percentage of infants/children who need additional vitamin D (due to the below mentioned factors) do not become deficient. It sounds like your doctor is just playing it safe. Factors that put a breastfed baby at risk for vitamin D deficiency (rickets) are very little exposure to sunlight, both mother and baby have darker skin and thus require more sun exposure to generate an adequate amount of vitamin D, or the mother is deficient in vitamin D.

OK- since your doctor told you to give him the Vitamin then stick to it! I would check at a pharmacy. We had to give our son some medicine that tasted like rubbing alcohol (and yes, I have tasted rubbing alcohol!). We bought some grape and cherry flavor stuff that goes into the liquid. Does not alter the medicine just gives a good taste. Much like what they use to add flavor to prescribed medicine.
I guess though, talk with your doctor again. Since your son is on solids he maybe able to get Vit D from other sources.

I also gave my daughter the same as what you are. she was 3 months premature. she got that starting in the nicu
since she was so small and i pumped for a while for the nurses to feed her thru her feeding tube. but then i wouldn't produce enough so we went to formula. from the beginning the nurses would mix it in with her formula or breast milk when i did produce it at the beginning. at home when i would mix it in with her formula i would make two small bottles. making sure the vitamin was only in a small amount of formula making sure she got all the vitamin,, then once she drank all that, i would give her the rest of her other bottle. and if she didn't finish that second bottle no harm, she got all her vitamin in the first one with about an ounce.

if you are breastfeeding maybe try to use your milk in a bottle mixed with the vitamin
if neither of those work,, i wish i had something better. sorry :)

i wouldn't question why you are giving it to him. there are many reasons why a baby might need to be supplimented.

good luck

If I were you I would get a little more information about why a 4 month old needs a multi-vitamin. I don't believe that Doctors have a divine knowledge. They may have just read more information than us Moms. (and passed a few tests)

My children's ped. recommended we put a particular med. in apple sauce for my son. When my son tried it he almost threw up. I tried it and I almost threw up!I told my son's Dr. about that, he looked shocked! I guess he wasn't used to being wrong about a recomendation.

I have read the posts and I agree with the following points:

Breastmilk should have everything your baby needs provided you are have a healthy diet.
Most cereals and baby foods are vitamin enriched if you read the labels.
If you absolutely HAVE to give your baby multi-vitamins for a ligit. medical reason. I wouldn't bother to mix it with food. That may turn your baby off solids. I like the eyedropper towards the back of the throat idea or in the first once of breastmilk when he is really hungry.

Good Luck!

L.

Just for the record... my doc told me it was NOT necessary to give the multi-vitamins to my son. I asked her about it because a friend asked ME -- I'd never heard of such a thing. He was exclusively breastfed. The amount of sunlight you need to get enough vitamin D is very short -- like minutes a week. We're in Wisconsin and my son was born in Sept., so I know how difficult it is to get out in that weather! lol. Even so, per my doc's recommendation, we didn't supplement with vitamins.
That being said... if there's a reason you need to do this (and agreeing with your doctor is definitely a reason!) then I'd suggest NOT putting it in some solid food, since you don't want to turn him off to the food. Also, 4 months is on the young end for solids, so it might not be the vitamin, he might just be having a hard time with the solids. My son was probably closer to 6 months when he finally got the hang of eating solids easily.
Sorry I have no other recommendations, just wanted to let everyone know that not all doctors agree about this... lol which of course makes things more confusing!
A.

Did you ever taste it...if you did you’d gag too.
I think it is a little ridiculous to give them to a 4 month old. The formula has enough vitamins for a 4 month old.

The body produces vitamin D on its own with the help of sunlight. Just make sure to get some healthy sun time, it does not take long only 10 minutes or so a day. I did not give the supplement to either of my kids since I believe in nature & they are both very healthy.
Brekka

I don't know if this will help, but when we used Poly Vi Sol with my older son we put it in whatever he was drinking. It worked especially well in juice because the sweetness of the juice seemed to cancel out the taste of the Poly Vi Sol.

I agree with the other moms, I am not sure why a 4 month old needs the vitamins, I do use them but not until they are a year old, what you could do is try dividing the drops into smaller dosages instead of giving them all at once. And if all else fails and he won't take them then I wouldn't worry about it. His formula or BM has everything a baby requires.

I agree with the below responses. If your breastfeeding your baby he will receive all the nutrients he needs from your milk.

I don't know about the rest of you, but Im sure hoping that the difference btwn myself and my ped. is much greater than she "read more stuff and passed some tests". Honestly, you go to your doc for a reason, right? If you don't trust their advice, than find one who you do trust. Sure, use your God-given mommy instincts, but medicine goes a step beyond that to help maintain the health of our children...some of you act like doctors are out to hurt our babies! That said, I think vitamins DO taste horrible...I def. know that iron tastes like metal...yuck! Perhaps you could add enough of the flavoring so that baby won't gag. Maybe research another brand, if one exists that tastes better. If all else fails, ask your pharmacist. They are often an untapped resource by being behind the counter. They, too, have "read some stuff and passed some tests"....lol! Okay, sorry about that, now Im just being a smarta**!
~L.

If you are exclusively breastfeeding, the current recommendations by pediatricians is that a vitamin D supplement is necessary because human breastmilk does not have much vitamin D. Your other source, of course, is sunlight but if you don't live in a sunny climate, that's hard to get in the winter time. I gave my baby the Poly Vi Sol for his first year (at which point he went onto cow milk). I think you are using the best brand. As far as tricks- I don't really have any. I know the drops taste bad, but my boy never minded- in fact I think he kind of liked them. I would nurse him, put the dropper to the back of his mouth and squeeze it and he would swallow it, then I'd continue to breastfeed. Sorry I'm not more help.

Hi C.. I suggest that you do your own research. Pediatricians are not required to have any training on breastfeeding and most don't! Read a book based written by an actual breastfeeding expert and you will learn that putting your baby in the sun (even through a window in the winter) for 10 minutes a day will give your baby all the vitamin D that he needs. My pediatrician told me the same thing, but my daughter has done just fine with the sunlight. Also, you will learn that 4 months is not the best time for the baby to start solids. Take what you want, leave the rest...

It is not necessary to give a baby a multivitamin. Dr.'s often suggest it to breastfeeding babies because there is some controversy over wether breastmilk has enough vitamin D in it...as long as Mom and baby are gettign enough sunlight their bodies make enough vitamin D.

It's possible that your son isn'te quite ready for food yet if he's spitting it out.

Hi C.,
I agree with Brandy, I have never heard of giving an infant a multivitamin. I could be wrong but I thought formula or breastmilk was the only thing a baby needs.
Chris

My daughter is also on the vitamins you mentioned and it helped us to divide the daily recommended does in half. She gets half in the morning and half in the evening. she took it much better also, and I am not sure if your baby is breast feeding (thats why mine is on the vitamin) but when I give it to her i have my breast ready and I put the vitamin in her mouth and than give her my breast so she just sucks it down ,in the evening when I am at work and my hubby gives her a bottle of breast milk he mixes it in the bottle. Good luck