Hello! My daughter is 4.5 years old and is very iron deficient. We found out she is anemic about 2 years ago. I used to be able to give her iron drops in her sippy cup when she was smaller, but as she has gotten older it has been extremely difficult to get her to eat any iron enriched foods (sensory issues) and now she absolutely refuses any type of liquids/ juice ect. out of fear that the "yucky drops" are in it. She will only drink water.
I have tried the Renzo's iron tablets which she tolerated at first after explaining to her why she needs to take it, but now refuses them and says they are too sour. I also tried dissolving in orange juice. She also refuses any of the Pediasure drinks.
Has anyone had success with any type of chewable (no gummies- she refuses those as well) iron tablets or vitamins that your picky eater has tolerated that is high in iron? Perhaps any type of powders that can be added to water?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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LF2023
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My son always would take any gummies etc I give him. However when he was low on iron he needed like 30mg per day for 3 months and I managed this with Spatone natural iron water. It’s a pouch which is 5ml and it’s highly bioavailabke so my son needed only 3 months of this regimen and it all went back to good iron stores.
I’d say if your daughter wouldn’t touch it in a drink, I’d think what she eats and if there is any possibility to mix it in. Volume wise it’s very little -I think like 5-10ml. There is one which is natural water and one which is natural apple flavour. For example when I make spag bol for my kids I add mince and all veg, then tinned tomatoes and once it’s cooked down I add a bit of apple juice for sweetness. Kind of because for adults you’d add red wine and maybe a pinch of sugar but for kids apple juice makes spag bol tastier. If you cook down the sauce quite a lot then it’s thick and it gives way of adding that extra Spatone liquid to her portion. It would be easy to then in her portion (not mixing it with the whole batch) to mix meat and tomato sauce with this tiny pouch of Spatone. But it depends if she eats foods like this which are easy to add something.
Mash potatoes would be good for this too- when you make your mash from cooked potatoes and add a lot of butter and maybe a bit less milk so it’s thick but then you add plain natural water Spatone.
It just depends what she eats.
But I’d say Spatone natural water you could even add to pancake batter. It’s then easy to dollop various tasty things on it- maple and blueberries and crispy bacon. I do t think she’d taste any difference in the pancake.
Or creps. Or boil porridge or cream of wheat with it. Plus cream of wheat already has a lot of iron but I know most kids just don’t like it.
Even pouring a pouch on cooked rice before you add the sauce on top maybe could work.
I’d say you could even go as far as baking a banana bread and fortifying with Spatone.
It depends how sensitive she is to this metallic taste and I’d say you’d have to try how it tastes first.
Also worth noting, we have in the UK Arla milk brand and they add iron and some basic vitamins to their milk. This milk tastes exactly like any other fresh milk, it’s a fresh milk in fridge section, not UHT which my kids hate. You may have that in US too. It’s just until you end it you’d never really look for it.
Also watch out for more natural, bio, organic products like organic cereal - they won’t be fortifying it with anything so let’s say such bread has all the natural goodness but won’t have the iron you need.
And last but not least look at fortified products like breakfast cereal but think about adding some acidic or rich in vitamin C food as iron will not absorb from food if given just a bowl of cereal with milk. There needs to be a bit of something with vitamin C - whichever fruit of veg she accepts and then it makes iron bioavailable.
Does she swallow tablets? Then you don’t have to tell her what she actually takes.
oh really? I didn’t know that- a while ago she actually would eat the pink yogurt covered raisins I could give that a shot- I am willing to try anything at this point! Haha thank you!!
I actually give my kids the flintstones vitamins with iron. They ask for them daily now and even love picking the characters. They never seemed to like the gummies, and the flintstones ones are fair priced and honestly have all of the daily vitamins that the other vitamins have. And they have no artificial dyes. I've honestly seen an improvement in behavior from my adhd 7 year old since I've started them, and my 4 year old takes them with no issues, even though she has gotten into the picky eating phase. Not sure if you need more iron than they provide, but you just have to make sure you get the ones that say "with iron"
Flintstones vitamins are the best! The characters are so well "pressed" and not lumpy, so they're fun. Fun = more interesting = more likely to remember to take them too.
We find the gummies are good as well, but they can get to feel hard on the teeth with all the chewing. Plus they're not cheap.
I know it's been weeks but we love Flintstones vitamins - I wish they had them in adult RDAs, but they'd probably be huge.
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