2 Year Old Is Iron Deficent

Hi J.,
You already have a lot of suggestions regarding food and a multivitamin.

I'll just add that if you switch to cast iron cookware (not porcelain coated), there will be more iron in all the foods you cook.

My first question is, why is your daughter iron deficient and anemic? Did the doctor do any testing to figure out why?

I'm just asking, because at the age of 41, I found out last year that I have a severe malabsorption problem (but being anemic isn't one of them) and that I have severe soy and gluten intolerances, which I'll never outgrow, and have a casein allergy, which will never go away.

Food allergies and intolerances usually start in childhood.

If your daughter is already showing signs of iron deficiency at the age of 2, if she does have any underlying problems, she'll just keep adding one thing after another onto her "list" of symptoms and illnesses until the real reason is uncovered. Finding out early whatever "problem" she might have will help her avoid being sick in life and/or autoimmune diseases down the road, which is what I now contend with.

I wish you much luck and success.

Iron fortified cereal for snacks. Try liver sausage (Braunshwiger) if you haven't already. Beans, ground meats, and cut up meats. Peanut butter and eggs are also good. Dark green veggies like brocoli, spinach, and collard greens, turnip greens.

Too much milk with cause low iron absorbtion. Limit milk to 16-20oz per day.

It might be sounds gross,but this liver spread packed with iron and protein and if you don't know it's liver in it ,you'll probably like it a lot.
here is recipe
chicken livers(1 can)-wrap it in foil
1 big carrot-wrap in foil
bake them for about 45 min
cut onion,mushrooms-simmer them until golden color
hard boil 2 eggs
Put all ingredients in the blender and mix them all together(should be smooth consistency).
Use this with bread or crackers.

Spaghetti w/ hamburger. Anything that has a tomato base with red meat. The tomatoes help to break down and allow your body to utilize the iron in red meat.

Good Luck!
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Make a smoothy with green leafies (swiss chard is good). Use a base of orange juice- add a banana or berries until desired texture and flavor is reached.

Google Spinach Brownies! They are good!

We just went through this and I have a meat eater (which made us surprised she had low iron in the first place), so we just fed her a lot of meat, which wouldn't help in your case it sounds like. But one thing I did be sure to do was give her the iron supplement with a fruit juice that had a lot of Vitamin C since that increases the absorbtion. I also was more aware of how much milk she was drinking and tried to space that away from iron rich meals since milk can make the absorbtion go down.

believe it or not, when I was anemic during pregnancy, I ate Cream of Wheat. It actually has a reasonable amount of iron in it.
If she likes eggs try a spinach quiche. If you have a juicer, take an apple a pear and spinach and broccoli and put them all in. She will taste the apple and the pear, but she will be getting a ton of iron and other vitamins.

I have my kids on a nutritional supplement that is awesome. They have it mixed with 8 ounces of milk once a day. I have heard stories of other kids with anemia and their levels came up when on the supplement. Tastes good too (either choc. or Vanilla). I can give you more info if you want to hear more just let me know.
~M.
____@____.com

There are plenty of good iron sources that are plant-derived, so I don't think there's much of a need to worry.

Just a few of these:
Beans and lentils, pumpkin seeds, Blackstrap Molasses, enriched cereals, spinach, tofu (although some sources do list these last two as an iron-absorption inhibitors)

There are foods that help a body absorb iron more, such as:
Orange Juice, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapefruit,Broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomato, potato, green & red peppers

And, of course, there's also the multivitamin.

If you're unable to get your little one to eat meat (which does happen to be the most readily available source of iron) it shouldn't be a problem. We're all vegetarian in my family and, so far, I've been raising 3 very healthy little girls - no vitamins, either!

You might have to change your outlook on food and do a bit of research to figure out how to balance things, but you'll do fine.

Recipe:
http://www.parentsconnect.com/dishes/citrus_bean_salad.jh...

Try grinding up chicken or beef in a food processor and then add it to something like spaghetti sauce, cheese quesadilla, soup, pizza sauce...

Try the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" It has recipes for kids that hide veges, meats and fruit so kids don't know it's in there. Here is a sample recipe from the cookbook.

Pita pizza
-8 (4 inch) whole wheat pita pockets
-1/2 cup spinach puree
-2 cups tomato sauce
-2 cups thinly sliced part-skim mozzarella

Preheat oven to 400
spread spinach on each pita so that it comes to about 1/2 inch from the edge. Spread sauce over the spinach; it should cover the spinach and come to about 1/4 inch from the pita edge. lay cheese over sauce.

place pizzas on foil-lined baking sheet and bake until cheese melts and begins to brown. Let pizzas cool 5 minutes before serving so the cheese cools and doesn't pull off.

Cheerios! 3/4 of a cup has 45% of the iron a child under 4 needs I think (I'm at work, so I don't have a label to double check!) Also if you combine an iron rich food with something rich in vitamin C the iron will be better absorbed. Calcium hinders iron absorbption, so have her wash down her supplement with juice, not milk!