Alternatives to Polyvisol; Baby multivitamins with Iron

[olivebubble]

Hello all,

 My 9 month old had his heel pricked to check his iron levels this past Tuesday. He was a little low. 11.3, needed to be at about 12. His pediatrician recommended a multivitamin with iron, she named Polyvisol by Enfamil as one of the more well known ones. I looked it up, checked the ingredients, and figured there had to be a better one out there. I've found several baby multivitamins in liquid form from other makers, but none so far that contained the iron.    Any recommendations for a baby multi with iron and decent ingredients? Thanks!

[Knitting Mama]

Polyvisol is disgusting, too. I got to try a bit at a friend's house after learning my daughter was mildly anemic, and it is so gross- stains everything, tastes horrible. So we're doing the food approach to bring her iron up. I feel much more comfortable feeding her foods rich in iron and vitamin C (which helps aid the absorption of iron) than I do giving her a multivitamin, anyway. Hopefully when we go to her one-year WBV her hemoglobin will be up!

[olivebubble]

Yes, I would definitely prefer to the food approach, but my little guy is super picky about his foods, and we've had much trouble getting him to eat, and keep down any of the good iron rich stuff :(  I forgot to mention this in my first post, we're at the point now where we just need a good multivitamin with iron. The food side of the issue continues to be a work in progress!

[Knitting Mama]

Cecilia's not a big eater either. She is really not into solids a lot. BUT, she loves to self-feed rice puffies, so I made the decision to start offering her Joe's O's. They are high in iron, and while they do have a bit of sugar in them, for us it was an acceptable trade off. So she self-feeds a handful a day, and hopefully it will suffice... She likes most fruit too, so I give her some fruit with vitamin C as well.

[olivebubble]

Mmm... that's interesting. What are Joe's O's? Are they cheerios from Trader Joes? We're in Texas now, sadly no Trader Joe's here. The pedi also recommended we give K. cheerios, so he would self feed. Though, I didn't think there was any iron in Cheerios. Might should look that one up! He will and does like to self feed, so cheerios with iron in them might work. We have an issue with him throwing his solid foods up. We bought him some grain fed hormone free beef from Central Market last night. Lightly cooked in olive oil on the stove. He ate some, then barfed it right up. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, with the solid food. Like maybe allowing him to eat too fast/feeding him too fast, or if it's the texture of the solid food, or what, but so far not much luck getting him to keep solid food down. Except for Butternut Squash. Most every thing else comes right on up. 

[McGucks]

Check this out:  http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/1298653/10-m-o-with-low-iron

Our LO has low iron & I started a post about it awhile back and got some great recipes and suggestions.  We do the Polyvisol yuk a few days a week mixed with molasses and unflavored yogurt since his iron was super low and try to make sure he has some good iron food every day.  It's hard because he's not a great eater of solids, especially for me (does better for his dad).  Am hoping for an improvement at the 1 year old check-up.

[Knitting Mama]

Originally Posted by olivebubble 

Mmm... that's interesting. What are Joe's O's? Are they cheerios from Trader Joes? We're in Texas now, sadly no Trader Joe's here. The pedi also recommended we give K. cheerios, so he would self feed. Though, I didn't think there was any iron in Cheerios. Might should look that one up! He will and does like to self feed, so cheerios with iron in them might work. We have an issue with him throwing his solid foods up. We bought him some grain fed hormone free beef from Central Market last night. Lightly cooked in olive oil on the stove. He ate some, then barfed it right up. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, with the solid food. Like maybe allowing him to eat too fast/feeding him too fast, or if it's the texture of the solid food, or what, but so far not much luck getting him to keep solid food down. Except for Butternut Squash. Most every thing else comes right on up. 

Yep, regular Cheerios are also iron fortified, so they are definitely a viable option. Like I said before, I think it comes down to weighing your options. I wasn't going to do any grains before a year, and I certainly didn't want to do foods with added sugar, but when it came down to it, Cecilia not being anemic was way more important to me than those things, so I gave in. And yes, Joe's O's are like Cheerios from TJ's. I think a couple of the natural food brands also make their own; you can check the cereal aisle of one of your local natural foods stores. I think Texas has Sunflower Markets? I love my Sunflower! Just check the consistency well-- I was going to try the Kashi Heart to Heart O's, but my sister told me that they did not break down easily in the mouth the way Cheerios do.