Calcium Intake for 16 Month Old

Your pediatrician is the best source of information on how much calcium he should be getting each day at his age. The human adult body can only process 500 mg at a time.

You can visit the website for Registered Dieticians: http://www.eatright.org/

They will list out all the foods (such as broccoli) that are high in calcium. And, they should also have information about how to prepare them (raw usually retains the most nutrients) to get as much of the desired nutrients as possible.

First of all rice milk, unsweetened coconut milk and almond milk are great alternatives. He does not have to have milk and oj has a lot of sugar. There is also soy yogurt and goat cheese. He can get enough calcium with other foods and veggies.

Have you tried rice milk? It's thinner than goat's milk, but it's fortified with calcium. We do one cup of rice and one of goat for my 14 1/2 mo old (I'm still nursing as well, and plan on nursing for awhile due to dairy, soy, egg and other potential allergies/sensitivities). Whole Foods also sells coconut milk (and yogurt), I don't know how much calcium is in that. Have you tried the goat's yogurt @ Whole Foods?

Be careful of the calcium fortified oj. I think it's milk derived (they don't list on the package HOW it's fortified) and my 3 yr old (who is also allergic to dairy) gets bad bowels whenever he drinks that, but does okay with regular oj. /hope this helps!

If you're still happy nursing him, I would just keep nursing him, even just first thing in the morning or last time at night. That is a serving of calcium right there. If you're personally ready to wean him, then I agree with the other posters, there are veggies with lots of calcium.

I bring up the extended nursing, not to pressure you into it, but because I almost weaned my 1 year old because I thought I was supposed to at a year, but when I found out the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for 2 years and realized that neither she nor I was actually ready to wean, I continued to nurse her till she was two and it was a good decision for us.

Calcium doesn't always have to come from dairy. Broccoli contains 33mg of calcium per 1/2 cup, almond butter has 88mg per 2 Tbsp and oatmeal contains 165 mg per 1 pkt! Your son should consume about 500-800mg per day of calcium. If your getting the goats milk in a carton, try getting it in powdered form. It's about $9-11 per can and you can get 3 quarts out of it. They sell it at Whole Foods and the Vitamin Shoppe.

I would just like to let you know that when OJ fortified with calcium first came out, I thought it was great. Bought it for my family and drank a lot of it. I got painful bone spurs on my finger joints. In college, my mom sent me off with a supplement called Dolomite - - it gave me a bone spur on my foot. I stopped the Dolomite, the bone spur disappeared. I stopped the OJ fortified with CALCIUM, and the spurs again disappeared. So BE CAREFUL with CHEAP calcium supplements. Some are not absorbed correctly by the body. Personally, I'd second the mom's suggestion that you continue to breast feed until at least age 2 - - heck, even age 3. Best form of calcium there is. Another reason to keep breastfeeding is natural immunity - - if you are exposed to a flu virus, within hours, the antibodies are present in your breastmilk providing protection to your child.