I often wonder about this myself. For myself and for the Pickle. I've asked a number of professionals (GP, nutritionist, the Food Doctor - yep that guy off the telly), and opinions can vary quite considerably.

However, the majority opinion seems to be that if your diet is full and varied then there is no need to spend money on supplements. BUT I do believe that everybody is different and evidently some people's bodies are more efficient at absorbing nutrients/vitamins than others. Now whether it is power of the mind or not, I do feel better when I remember to take the horse pills every morning - do I feel better because I do remember & feel virtuous, or do I feel better because I am full of vitamins??!!! Who knows......but it certainly looks like I pee alot away judging by the positively luminous colour of it.

The other thing to consider is the quality of the supplement which I'm told makes an enormous difference.

I really feel that I go through phases of getting completely bogged down with information overload on all these topics.

Well, who am I to argue with a "world expert"...

I am pretty sure not all vitamins get excreted when not needed, I think only the watersoluble vitamins (B, C) do. The fat-soluble vitamins (A, D) do not get excreted easily. In fact, I am positive you can get too much vitamin A. And on top of that, I am not even sure the watersoluble vitamins get excreted properly as baby kidneys aren't fully operational yet (that's why we're leaving the salt out of the baby food).

In short, I am not convinced giving your baby vitamins just to be sure is a good idea.

pmsl at esther's 'who am i..?'

I've also done some digging about through some of the resources that I can access with my Breastfeeding Counsellor hat on (no, I'm not a lacto-Nazi). I even went so far as to calculate our latitude to work out how much Vitamin D we can get in this bit of Scotland!

I decided that if I could find a painless way to get the supplement into BabyB (currently 8.5 months) then OK, but I wasn't going to let it become a daily battle. I have tried a *considerable* number of vitamin potions, some of which were returned to the pharmacy unopened, once I'd read the little info booklet.
- I find it hard to buy this 'keep anything peanut away from your baby - except for the Department of Health appointed vit supplement' business.
- I tried the 'just vitamins' - no flavour or nasty additives - type, but the seven drops required was enough to turn anything disgusting. I'd have had to give her a whole large sugary yoghurt product (you know the one with corners?) every day just to disguise it - which seems to counteract the benefit of the vitamins, don't you think?
- The best was the orange gunky stuff, but that's not saying much. Even with a feeding syringe it was spat straight out - makes a real mess on the bib and she ends up in tears, so I don't tend to bother...

One reason I went into BLW was to avoid forcing things down my daughter's throat. My four year old will happily accept a sucky sweetie full of vitamins - they taste just fine - why can't we find a better option form the under 3s? I feel no-one has yet produced a BLW-friendly vitamin option - I'd give it a try!

Cloviscat

well you see that's part of my question, clovis... why are some of them for the over-3s? is it the content, are the vits different? could we chop them up into little pieces? or is it that they are a choking hazard, do you think?

As far as I could work it out it's
(a)Choking hazard and
(b)Sugar -or-
(c)Additives illegal for under 3s

The vit content is not that different: for instance I can give the same orange gunky to 8.5 mo old BabyB and 4 year old Fruit, I just give a double dose to Fruit (she doesn't mind the stuff, but eats so well it's pointless...)

Even if I chopped it I think B would spit it out: but if I could melt or dissolve something the size of a sucky sweetie could it be hidden in a sensible amount of camoflage...? and would I get round to it on a daily basis?

I would rather she had a bit of real sugar than a hefty dose of weirdo chemicals. I might not mind the weirdo chemicals if it was a medicine for a one-off illness, but not daily for YEARS.

My ideal would be something I could inject into a grape...

but it would all pour straight out when you cut it in half, clovis... [wink]

Oh no! Why didn't I think of that? And they'll be so slippy once I've peeled them!

I once sat and watched the Mum of a 'fussy eater' peeling grapes for her: life is TOO SHORT

But talking of short cuts: umm: confession time. Couple of weekends ago, when the soft fruit in the shops was particularly bleuch, I tried B on... tinned apricots. Admittedly the ones in grape juice rather than syrup. She scoffed a WHOLE TIN and then did the same with a tin of peaches. I wonder if it's because they're so soft - they must slip down nice and easy... Beautiful nappies followed! I'm now trying to resisit the temptation of giving them too her too often as an easy option. Lordy - what sort of mother am I?

i loved tinned peaches (were they called 'cling peaches'?) in syrup when i was a kid. and 'fruit salad'. and you know i am a bit anal about grapes so i actually do cut them in half...

Oooh - tinned peaches with evaporated milk. Yum, yum, yum.

I actually meant to put something constructive on this thread as well! We are off to the dietician's again next week... (they've trapped me in the system). I shall ask for her considered opinion. I shall then probably not give Minky vitamins, as I don't see the point. She currently eats a pretty balanced diet with tons of fruit and veg (both banana and carrot).

Bleuch - the tinned fruit thing goes against one of my subconscious tenets of BLW - that I should believe in the food I offer B: but I can't stand tinned fruit!

I could never have touched the pureed stuff her big sister received: it seemed hypocritical to make her eat it. This time round I don't have to be two-faced.

Ugh - this has stirred up memories of my own big sister feeding her kids and tucking into the supermarket jars of baby mush - makes me shudder!

I have the same argument with all baby medicines - why are they flavours of things the babe has never tasted. Trying to get syringes of anything into IzzyMouse seems to create more upset than whatever I'm trying to 'cure' with it.

My ideal would be medicines, vits etc to be breastmilk flavour. Why can't they do that?!

ah, medicines. if ne1 has any good tips on how to get medicine down a baby that absolutely refuses to let anyone put anything into his mouth let me know. at the moment i have to hold him down and squeeze his mouth open. its not something i like doing but its the only way i can do it, the dr showed me!
he has just started a course of antibiotics, it seems every cold he gets goes straight onto his chest :(. at least its only that tho, we spent wednesday night at a&e as he had a high temperature and some spots on his leg that werent disappearing with the tumbler test. very scary!

I return from the dieticians...

It has been suggested that Minky take a multivitamin. This is because she doesn't "do" dairy and she may be lacking in fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K for those that are interested). However, I am going to write down everything she eats for four days, they are going to stick it in a computer and then tell me whether she really needs a vitamin supplement. This will take about a month, so clearly no rush to give them to her and no prescribing them just in case.

All the water soluble vitamins are in fruit and veg and, providing she's eating these, there was no need to worry about them.

Apart from dairy, you could find fat soluble vitamins in eggs, fish, oils, fruit, veg and liver. Perhaps a BLW recipe for liver and bacon is in order...

do you know, i actually think that's a good idea. i haven't had liver in ages but my mum used to feed it to us when we were younger. bacon, onions and liver... yum. the funny thing is that with local butcher disappearing i wonder if liver might be quite hard to get hold of now?

The 70s dietician guru Adele Davis recommends liver as a first food for the iron content (and would you believe she recommended giving the baby sticks of liver to hold and self-feed?!).

>> "I am going to write down everything she eats for four days"

Wondering how Moomin is going to achieve this if Minky's table habits are anything like my kids...? Weigh the food before profeering it, allow baby to eat their fill, then scrape the floor, weigh the scrapings and take one from the other...?

What fun!

>> "I am going to write down everything she eats for four days"

Wondering how Moomin is going to achieve this if Minky's table habits are anything like my kid's...? Weigh the food before profeering it, allow baby to eat their fill, then scrape the floor, weigh the scrapings and take one from the other...?

What fun!

Clearly I am going to lie. Given the past few days of sickness and diarrhea, it'll be more a case of weigh food, offer, scrape floor, subtract, wait ten minutes, clear sick off jumper/floor/baby, weigh sick, subtract again.

I just wanted to share this with you. I sat down to lunch with a friend who also has an 11 month old baby. Pumpkin ate (oh yes, she is eating again!) grilled Aubergine slices spread with houmous, ciabatta, cucumber, cheese and an oatcake followed by a pear. My friend, after spooning mush into her little one (and thus having no lunch herself) questioned after witnessing this feast "that's great but when do you give her the proper food"......

What could you say to that??

lol!! i get this too. 'but when will you be starting her on purees?' 'how will she survive on just finger food, carrot batons and bread sticks will hardly fill her up' 'does she still take her purees ok with her eating half your dinner as well?'

lol, lol, lol!!

pmsl at you two.

Oh God, is this what I've got to look forward to??!! Can't wait!! Will need to come up with some witty back comments :-) Proper food indeed.

On the vitamin issue.... I can attack on three fronts:
1) I work in Pharmacy: baby probably doesn't need them
2) growing up with 50 gazillion food allergies and hiding my vits in my mattress I never suffered from scurvy
3) Cramming stuff in a mouth is how you get pate.... not a healthy baby

Comebacks:
We'll start the purees when she starts nursing home
oh... he hasn't learned to eat yet... how old is he?
(dive dramatically at person) DEAR GOD YOU'LL CHOKE ON YOUR FOOD!