Iron Supplements for 13-Month-old??

I have had a couple of anemic little ones, one was particularly bad. We have used Floridex as well as Ferrets IPS to help my kids. The best success we had was actually with my most anemic baby-we used the Ferrets and gave it with Pomegranate juice. We saw the most, and quickest, improvement with him. Pomegranate juice is so loaded with Vit C it seems to work better than any thing else to help absorption. We did the dosage of Ferrets with one ounce pom juice and within two months his levels were great!

My son had to start taking poly-Vi-Sol at exactly the same age for the same reason. trying to administer it to him "straight" was a nightmare. I started putting it into full-strength apple juice (just about 3 ounces) first thing in the morning and it has worked for us for over a year now.

I've recently been making smoothies for my daughter w/pureed steamed greens and fruit. They taste pretty good - we call it Super Smoothie!

Cream of wheat with added blackstrap molasses would be very high in iron, and he might think it was super yummy with a good texture. Iron absorbs best with vitamin C, so having a little glass of orange juice would be perfect. Will he eat little pieces of hambuger?

Yep, Poly-Vi-Sol tastes horrid, but it works. Just mix it in with something that your son already eats or drinks. I put it in yogurt or smoothies and my son doesn't even notice. Good luck!

Hi C.,
I have a great product that gives you all your daily vitamins (including iron)in one small dose. It's in juice form and taste great! Myself my husband and our 2 year old so all take it. Our son asks for the "good juice" every morning. It's a whole food and has no chemicals in it what so ever. It's an awesome product!!! It you are interested in learning more please let me know. You can e-mail me at ____@____.com or call me at ###-###-####. Good luck!
T.

I use a supplement called Floridex. I get it at Whole Foods, and it costs about $30 a bottle. It's tolerable for an adult and for a child could be hidden in a bottle or cup of juice, no problem.

I also use molasses for my kids. At least three times a week we have molasses pancakes. I use a regular whole wheat pancake mix, and add some molasses to the batter. Use about a tsp at first until your children get used to it, then you can increase it. I use about 1 TBS in enough batter for 3-4 medium pancakes.

I have also made a syrup of honey and molasses. We like it, but we're used to molasses. My recipe is 2/3 honey 1/3 molasses. There are also lot's of molasses recipes for cookies and cakes. Feel free to be creative.

You might also look for the book, "Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food" by Jessica Seinfeld

Good luck!

There are plenty of foods that have iron in them, and you can give the iron foods 30 minutes before or after milk for maximum absorption. I wouldn't bother with suppliments unless he abslotutely refuses every iron food you give him because iron in it's food form is so much better. Get creative. Pickles are a good source of iron, if he doesn't want to eat bits of pickle, you could puree a pickle and make a popcycle out of it that might sound crazy but we moms do what we have to do.
Next info taken from http://www.healthcastle.com/iron.shtml

Excellent sources of Iron
# Clams
# Pork Liver
# Oysters
# Chicken Liver
# Mussels
# Beef Liver
Good Sources of Iron
# Beef
# Shrimp
# Sardines
# Turkey
Excellent sources of Non-Heme Iron
# Enriched breakfast cereals
# Cooked beans and lentils
# Pumpkin seeds
# Blackstrap Molasses
Good sources of Non-Heme Iron
# Canned beans
# Baked potato with skin
# Enriched pasta
# Canned asparagus

Iron Absorption Enhancers
* Meat/fish/poultry
* Fruits: Orange, Orange Juice, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapefruit etc
* Vegetables: Broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomato, tomato juice, potato, green & red peppers
* White wine

Iron Absorption Inhibitors
* Red Wine, Coffee & Tea
* Vegetables: Spinach, chard, beet greens, rhubarb and sweet potato
* Whole grains and bran
* Soy products

One more little note I believe we give our kids Way too much milk. Most people think it's this super source of calcium. Well it does give some calcium but not nearly as much as people think because one of the ingredients in milk inhibits absorbtion of calcium. I don't remember wich ingredient it was but I read about it in Doctor Sears Book Nutrition for Families. So I would look for other Calcium foods as well. Hope this helps

You might also consider Yo Baby Yogurt with Fruit and Cereal and Iron.
http://www.yobabyyogurt.com/products/YoBaby-plus-fruit-ce...

We have been giving our daughters poly-vi-sol into their milk since they were born and they drink it right down. Have you tried dropping that into his bottle with like an ounce of formula?

We went through the same thing, and around 13 months our son flat out refused to take the meds no matter what we did. We ended up doing Carnation Instant Breakfast or toddler formula for him. Finally, at maybe around 15 months? We started giving him a 1/2 of a Flintstones Complete. Target makes a nice generic with everything in it. The Flintstones First didn't have enough iron for him. My now 15 month old chews Prevacid each morning with no problem, and has been for about 5 months, so I would think the Flintstones would work. For CIB, you mix one serving with 10 ounces whole milk. It has everything formula has in it, one gram more sugar (if I recall right) and 10 calories more per ounce than formula. It's a common substitute for low weight babies. We did it with our daughter for a while with goat's milk. GL!

Hello!

My daughter had this problem at the same age. She wouldn't take the iron supplements. She also wouldn't have been able to drink that amount of water that was required. She was on a prescription supplement and she had to drink 8 oz. of water with each dose...impossible to get her to do that. So I just bought every Gerber item I could find, mostly Gerber Graduates, and pretty much just fed her that. They are all high in iron. I put baby applesauce (like the Gerber jar foods) in whatever I could because it had vitamin C and would help her absorb the iron better. I fed her lots of the Gerber Graduate snacks and gave her apple juice when she had them (again, the vitamin C absorbency thing). Her iron levels were back to normal and her doctor was really surprised that it had happened so fast and just with the diet change. I didn't really like any of those foods for her before but in this case, they did have the most iron and I am glad I switched her to bring up the iron levels. I know there are plenty of foods that naturally contain iron, but this seemed to be the easiest because of the label reading...a lot were 45% and 35% of the daily iron needed.

I am guessing since I haven't heard anything that my baby's 9 month iron levels are normal. (I will call on that now that I am thinking about it.) He is exclusively breastfed. I feed him happy bellies mixed grain cereal every day - 2 servings, and that givs him 120% of his daily iron. I also fed him prunes almost daily (high in iron). I also feed him beets, and meat whenever I can get him to eat it (not that often). Soybeans and lentils are high in iron too. With the iron meal I do not feed protien (unless the iron is a protien, like meat) because I have read that the protien can bind with the iron and slow absorbtion. Vitamin C aides in absorption though, so I make sure to offer juice and papaya.

Hopefully this helps. I would really love a nutrition book that breaks down HOW MUCH of what food has HOW MUCH of what vitamin or mineral in it. That would really be helpful. (In terms that people can understand, not milligrams, which can't even be measured or iu's or whatever.)

Hi C.. I know what you mean about the typical iron supplements tasting awful. I tried a few and didn't have the heart to force my daughter to take them either. I, too, opted to feed my daughter iron rich food, but that is extremely difficult. I found a great liquid, whole food supplement that tastes like black cherry juice. Its really high quality and since it is a whole food, it is 98% absorbed. It is very mineral rich so you get all of the other nutrition your body needs, not just the iron. I even know people with severe, persistent anemia who tried every supplement out there who have had their anemia completely clear up on this supplement. My daughter takes it every day and actually has a tantrum if we run out! If you want more info, private message me or email me at ____@____.com luck!

Hi C.-

I had this same issue & posted this question about a year ago. If you click on my name, it should lead you to the questions I've asked & read the great responses. For what it's worth, we almost never used the drops, but after eating red meat about 4-5 times a week (and some spinach I made or as Happy Baby spinach & mango cubes or Dr. Praegers spinach bites), she was fine 6 months later at her check. She had ground beef (grass-fed, which is better for them) with ketchsup or meatballs I made with egg, breadcrumbs, worchester sauce & ground apple a lot. Molasses is a good addition, as are cast iron pans, which really help. But meat is the best option! Keep trying--ketchsup was the trick for us! Good luck!

Here is a little information that I found that might help. You may want to consider giving him formula for a little while longer. I am surprised if he is still taking formula and his iron levels are low, many formulas are packed with iron! You may want to try a different brand for a little while just to get him back to normal.

http://www.providence.org/losangeles/services/blood_donor...

I love floridex iron + herbs, and I'm pretty sure they make it for kids too... it may just have a dosage on there for kids. I think it tastes good and it's completly natural, so it's no constipating and more absorbable than most. Works wonders for me!!
S.

Go over to Whole Foods. They have a vitamin that has 120% of the DV of iron. It is hard to find a kids vitamin that has iron since I guess it is the most common cause of overdose death in kids. My 2 year old was really old and we learned when they are so low you can't raise the level with food quickly enough. She was doing much better at her 6 week recheck. I know what you mean about the iron drops that was a total joke. I put it in everything you could imagine and she would not drink anything. Might work better if your kid was younger but at 2 she was not going to have that. Here is the brand that we got. I went to the Whole Foods on 4th. Solaray Childrens Chewable she loves them. The people there were really helpful and they really were not more expensive than the ones at Walmart with no iron. I think they were like five bucks. Good luck! Did they do a veinous draw or the finger prick? The finger prick can be really off, so if that is what they did you might want to do a veinous draw or recheck it.

I know which vitamin you are talking about! I would try just putting it in a cup of juice or something (low-sugar juice of course!). That worked for my daughter when I gave her that stuff. I also make spinach juice, freeze it and use it in shakes or you can mix it in scrambled eggs. That might help. The vitamin might be your best bet right now to ensure his levels don't get any lower. Hope this helps.