How to Get Toddlers to Take Liquid Vitamins?

Use a bitter juice like orange juice or chocolate milk. Or you can use the regular juice she drinks as long as she can not detect it. Also only give her a little with the vitamin like maybe two ounces . but if she doing ok with the way you are giving it to her now then keep on going. if she does not finish give her nothing else until she is if there is only a little left discard it some vitamin is better than none. I have three children just to let you know. I switched to chewables when they would not take the liquid. My children are 12,7, and3.

When you give it to her in her sippy just put a couple ounces in the cup, and give it to her when you know she is really thirsty. that way she drinks it all.

Still put it in her sippy but do fill it completely. The vitamins with a few ounces then giver her more juice once the vitamins are gone. Good Luck.

My son has never been enthusiastic about letting me put anything in his mouth, including a dropper. Once he turned 1 and was able to have egg whites, I adopted a new strategy. He's always loved the yogurt melts, so I started making healthy meringues. I add the polyvisol and maybe some DHA fortified oatmeal or a baby food puree. You can get really creative once you learn how to work the egg whites. Pipe them into small, bite-size servings, or into sticks. He can feed them to himself and you can control the nutrition going into them. Works for us, and if a few wind up on the floor, I console myself with some dose is better than no dose. Good luck.

My daughter takes the same vitamin. I was having trouble with her rejecting the dropper around the same age as your child, and my pediatrician suggested putting it in yogurt or applesauce or something like that. I tried that a few times but found that it just made the food taste gross. BTW, they do taste gross, I tried them.

I just kept trying to give my daughter the vitamins in the dropper. I would sneak the dropper in the side of her mouth (not the back, it could cause her to choke a bit), squeeze the dropper really quick and be done with it. She only rejects it once in a while now. I try to sneak it in while she is eating something she really likes, like fruit or something, so she'll be occupied with the food she likes and so she'll have something to eat and wash the nasty taste away.

Keep trying, it took my daughter awhile to accept them again.

Just a thought, but why don't you taste it? That way you will know if it tastes yucky, and if it just tastes odd, then you will at least know the flavor, and what item might disguise it best.

Any reason you can't switch to chewable? We switched my son at 12 months to chewable for the same reason....though they have a bit less iron, I made sure he got the required iron in other foods....it was so nice to not have that battle every morning anymore!

My son takes his right from the dropper also. It has become a sort of after bath treat for him. Give that a try before you start hiding it in her drink. The gummy vitamins are also great.

If you're breastfeeding, toss the vitamins and take your toddler out for some sun for the vitamin D. Polyvisol is over prescribed for breastfeeding children because breastmilk doesn't have the same quantities of vitamin D as fortified milk or formula and doctors want to cover their butts even though the lower amounts in breastmilk are more easily processed than the fortified stuff because it's made for baby humans. Unless your child has had blood work done and has been diagnosed with a vitamin deficiency, I'd not worry about it. You're right, that stuff does taste wretched. I gave it to my oldest once or twice before I got tired of fighting her and looked up vitamin D deficiency and then tossed the bottle because she had no real risk for deficiency.

mix it w/ a bit of juice and give it w/ a medicine dropper. even if it takes 2 dropperfuls to get it in, but you might need that much juice to dilute it enough, they taste horrible.

Before you go to extreme lengths, I would recommend trying to give them to her straight from the dropper to see if she will take them that way. I've been giving them straight up from the dropper to my 13 month old for about 3 months now. She loves them (even if we don't think much of the taste.)

We give them to her (at our ped's recommendation) because her iron keeps testing a little low (even back when she was on formula and getting the full daily dose of iron that way), and now that she is on just solid foods, I feel better knowing that besides the iron, she's got the basic vitamins covered as well.

Even though she's on finger foods, aren't you still feeding her yogurt or anything like that? I would mix it in with that, if you have to.

One final thought - get rid of the juice and switch your child to plain water in that sippy cup. Juice has absolutely no nutritional value (excepting OJ), except for the vitamins the manufacturer has added. Nutritionally, these kind of vitamins are generally being excreted right out, since the body doesn't absorb them well. Realistically, if you are giving your child a vitamin in addition to their regular eating habits, then they don't really need the added-in vitamins - and they definitely don't need all that sugar.

I really don't understand, with the 'obesity epidemic', why pediatricians even recommend giving kids juice. Both my girls are fine with just water - and it's a lot easier to clean up!

Sorry, off my soapbox now. = )

Good luck!

Try reducing the amount of juice you give her... just to make sure she gets the vitamins,then give her more juice. Yes, they do taste pretty "irony"

Have you tried just giving them to her straight in the mouth from the dropper (of course you will need to wash the dropper each time)? My son was on vitamins for 6 months for his anemia and we never made a big deal about it just gave them to him right before bedtime. It became part of his routine......he never fought taking them. Good luck!

Why not just fill her sippy very low, with what you think she will be drinking (based on how it goes everyday), and just add the vitamins to that. Then you don't need to be worrying if she gets it all with a full sippy cup. And if she isn't drinking that small amount, encourage her...and make a routine of that being a requirement.
K.

So, hopefully this isn't stupid, but you didn't mention it, so I'll give my experience. I tasted the vitamins, they are horrible! Now, that being said, I tried to hide my sons as well and at a loss, just took the dropper and asked my son to open up. He did not knowing any better and i dropped them down along the side of his cheek, funny, didn't bother him at all! Until he switched to chewable at 3 yrs, he took them every day. Now if she spits them out and won't take them, my neighbor puts them in a single spoon of applesauce or even juice (the 2 teaspoon drinkable dropper is good for liquids) she should definitely drink that much, especially from that fun medicine spoon thing! Good luck and I hope this helps.

Mix it with just a little bit of juice in her cup, that way she doesn't have to drink as much to get it all. Or try mixing it in with a little bit of vanilla icing. that is what I had to do for my son to get him to take his meds when he had an ear infection.

My doctor recommended it for my daughter as well...she is 13 months. I give it to her just like I would tylenol. Right out of the dropper. She hated it at first but now she loves it. She gets excited when I bring it off the shelf. Good luck!

My son readily took the vitamins from the dropper. He did have acid reflux as a baby and got pretty used to taking medicine from a dropper so maybe that's got something to do with it, but he really didn't seem to mind the taste. He takes chewables now and has for a couple of months - he just turned 2. Good luck!

M. H

My daughter needed them as well when she was little. She took it straight from the dropper without a hesitation. I thought it smelled horrible too, but they have different taste requirements.

They will stain the teeth. Our daughter's teeth turned sort of grey but because she had taken a lot of anitibiotics for infections, we were worried it wasn't just the vitamins. We had her teeth cleaned and it came right off. Be aware of that so you don't freak out.

We needed the vitamins for the iron. I think it is important that you find a pediatrician that you trust and then follow their recommendations (questioning them where needed). I see you have received advice to ignore your doctor and skip the vitamins. Lots of people give us advice too, but I trust our doctors and ask questions when I'm uncomfortable. They aren't fool proof, but you have to decide who you are going to trust. In my opinion, 3 out of 5 people will give you different advice. Find someone you trust and be confident.

Good luck to you.
Liz

If you take a vitamin or supplement, try giving her her dose and then let her give you your dose. My son gets his liquid in the dropper and then hands me my gel tablet. The consistent routine has made it no problem for the last two years. Good luck :)

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Arbonne has liquid vitamins and we put in OJ and freeze into mini popsicles...works like a charm....but then again my kids love popsicles and will go through a whole box in an afternoon if I let them.

Hi Trisha,

My son's been taking those vitamins since he was a year old (he's 26mo now). He eats oatmeal almost every morning so I mix the vitamins in it & he's none the wiser. If he doesn't have oatmeal that morning, then I'll put it in applesauce, yogurt, or something else I know he likes to eat. If it's in a food that you know she'll eat completely, then you can give her larger quantities of food so it's more diluted, rather than mixing it with just a little bit of juice or something. It does smell/taste pretty strong but even I couldn't taste it when it was mixed with about 1/2 cup of food. It might be hard for a few days but eventually she'll get used to it so hang in there if she resists for awhile. Good luck! :-)

--J.C.

I have been putting mine in the formula, now milk, since my twins were 6 months. They never seem to care. I give it to them with their breakfast when they are ravenous, and then if they don't finish the milk it goes back in the fridge until lunch so I make sure they get it all. (You could do the same with any drink-just hold it over until the next time until she finishes it, juice should stay good most of the day especially if it goes in the fridge between uses)

Hope this is helpful, have a great week.

A.
www.snuggleandread.com

Hey Trisha,

Does she drink orange juice? You can mix it in that and cover the taste? I don't recommend mixing it in milk, it's a strong taste and can be easily detected by little ones. Also, you can make yogurt treat and mix it in that as well.

Best of luck!

J.

www.northmetrodcmommies.com

We put the vitamin on a spoon and then place something in it/around it and feed it to our daughter. We use cut up fruit because our daughter goes ga-ga over fruit. We also use Kix cereal pieces as well. And I don't know if the vitiamin tastes that bad for them.. my daughter won't eat from the spoon unless you show her you are dropping the vitiamin liquid on it. Odd??

My son is 17 months & I have been giving him a "gummy" multi-vitamin for about 3 months now; he wouldn't take the liquid ones at all. At first, I would give it to him in little pieces, making the pieces larger gradually until I was just giving him the whole thing. He does fine with it, although I make sure he is sitting in his high chair when I give it to him b/c he will sometimes spit it out & play w/ it - and they are very sticky when wet! :o)
Good luck!

Be careful because it will stain her teeth!

I just now noticed this message, so you may have already received plenty of advice. However, I thought I would share my method with you. My toddler LOVES when I give her a yogurt shake made from smooth, blended yogurt (like Yoplait) and milk. I nip the valve in her PLaytex sippy cup a little with some small scissors to allow a slightly faster flow for the thickened liquid. I add the Polyvisol to this, and though she is none the wiser about sipping down her vitamins. I even added a really gross-tasting/smelling antibiotic to it recently with excellent results. I would perhaps just make half a shake for your little one, just enough that she will drink all of it, and give it to her when she is really hungry.

best wishes
Jennifer

Personally, an di hope I don't sound rude, I think you dr is nuts. 14 months is REALLY young for vitamins. I owuldn't worry about vitamins unless your child is seriously sick/etc. I didn't give my daughter vitamins until she was 2 and even then you ahve to break the pill in half because theya re not allowed that much. I owuld skip vitamins for now, your chils should be fine.