So overwhelmed

[Channelle]

I'm feeling very overwhelmed about supplements. I'm new to all this, never even took a vitamin in my entire life until I got pregnant! This is my first baby she's 8 months, and I want the absolute best for her, and every time she gets sick I feel so guilty like if I could have given her enough supplements and immunity boosters, she would have not gotten sick! And she's not vaccinated, and I'm scared to death every time she gets sick. Reading on here, I've seen mention of at least 100 things to supplement the immunity, most I've never heard of!

I bought some cod liver oil to give to her and me, and I took one dose of it, and I was soooo sick, for like days! Seriously, I put it in orange juice, and it was lemon flavored, and it was SO NASTY! I could smell it all day, on my fingers, in my throat, it's horrible. There is no way I could give that to my baby, even if I wanted to. How would I even go about giving it to her? And to what dose?

Then I bought some coconut oil, or at least that's what the label said, inside was like white butter of some sort. I was actually excited about this one, as I LOOOVE coconut, so I warmed it up, and swallowed, and it was horrible! It didn't taste like coconut anything, it tasted like I was drinking oil! And I tried to put a little in a bottle for the baby with a little juice, and the darn oil solidified on me! Again, I don't have any clue how to give it to her or dosage!

She's on prebiotics, and I get that. It's easy. I just give her a little in a bottle of milk. She's not on a vitamin, but gets formula, which contains a lot of vitamins. She does eat some solids, but only a little purees, avocados, and steamed carrots.

Then I see all these posts in the archives about all these other things people take, and my head is whirling! Everything is expensive, hard to understand, and nasty! I just want her to be as healthy as possible, but I really just want to cry! And to top it off, I give her formula, because I failed to make enough milk for her, something I still beat myself up about.

Any help? What supplements would you give an 8 month old?

[Marnica]

Oh mama. Don't be so hard on yourself

The whole supplement thing is totally overwhelming, and yes can be expensive. I have been into supps for years, even before I got pregnant and had DS who is now 2 and I still get confused alot. All I can do is tell you what we do and what I think is important.

Here is what we do:

DS takes a multi vit and has since he was as young as your LO. I use Thorne's children's multi. Thorne is a superior brand of vitamins/supps IMO.

He also takes a probiotoc and we have used different ones. I think I may have found the one I like and works best for him and of course it is outrageously expensive, but if it is effective, I don't mind paying more.

Because your babe is formula fed, it is imperative that you give her probiotics and a good quality one with at least 15 billion CFU's and it MUST contain B infantis. The gut flora of a formula fed baby is usually a big old mess! so probiotics are so very important!!(Please don't beat yourself up about the BF. Im sure you did eveything you could!!)

We do CLO. I give nordic naturals for kids to DS. I believe it is strawberry flavored and he likes it. I take it as well. If you don't like the taste of the oil, you can purchase CLO in pill form for yourself.

Vit D is also very important. The RDA is ridiculous for Vit D. I take 5,000mg/day and DS takes 2,400mg and yes I test both our levels every 6 months.

We also do a whole food vitamin C and give sodium ascorbate when we are sick. I also have a whole raft of things I use (including homeopathics) when we are sick or trying to further boost immunity. But this all depends on what we are dealing with. Mostly we see a ND, so alot of stuff I use to deal with acute illnesses I have learned about through him. Maybe that is something you may want to consider as well??

Anyway just relax. It is all a learning process and takes time. And yes, even despite boosting immunity and using supps, kids still get sick. That is ok. In fact every time your baby gets sick and gets over it, her immune system emerges stronger than before

[SandyMom]

I agree w/ Marnica - don't be so hard on yourself!
We use Mercola's Children's Vitamins and LOVE them. They're the only ones my kids will consistently take w/o any fuss at all. Your LO is probably too young.
There's no need to swallow liquid col! That would make us gag too. Just get a good capsule.