Create a confident & healthy eater with my new book: Baby Self-Feeding

On Sale Now! Quarto Amazon Indigo Barnes & Noble Indiebound

Kids Vitamins

December 9th, 2014 | By: Dr. Alan Greene
Find out when you should start giving your child vitamins and why.

In This Article

Kids Vitamins

No matter how hard we try to ensure our kids eat a healthy, balanced diet, the reality is many children aren't getting all the nutrients they need to thrive. Here's how the right vitamin supplements can boost your kid's health.

Do babies need vitamin supplements?

Breast milk is the perfect food–well, almost perfect. As long as babies are drinking breast milk, they are filling their complex nutritional needs–except when it comes to vitamin D, which is linked to building strong bones and can also help prevent breast cancer, colon cancer and Parkinson's disease later in life.

Since we get this vitamin from the sun, and not our food supply, babies should receive 400 IU of vitamin D daily. (Most infants spend a great deal of time indoors and the depleted ozone makes it necessary for us to cover them up when they are outside.) Formula-fed babies don't require additional supplements, however, as formula is already supplemented with all the vitamins your baby needs, including vitamin D.