During a child's growth stage, they may need to take a certain vitamin or mineral supplement for healthy growth development. Especially if your child is not getting all the nutrients from a healthy diet or has other problems causing nutritional deficiencies. It’s vital to ensure that your child getting enough nutrients, vitamins and minerals even if it means giving them a dietary supplements to boost their overall health.
In most cases, healthy kids get an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals through healthy diet, and it is not difficult if you are feeding your child a balanced diet. But it is not always so easy to provide your child with a balanced diet too regularly. This is when mineral supplement come into the picture with various growth vitamins and minerals necessary for your child's healthy growth.
We have assembled a comprehensive, informative guide for you that will help you get a clear insight into healthy growth vitamins for children. At the end of this guide, you will also know if you need to give your child supplements or not or how you can choose what kids vitamin that may help. So, let’s not waste any more time and get to our informative guide.
Does your Kid Need Vitamin Supplements?
Many mothers try to cook a well-balanced home-cooked meal for their children. It can be a hectic task that your child may not even eat in the end. This is why most pediatricians recommend that you give your child the necessary vitamin and mineral supplements for healthy growth.
Here are some reasons why it becomes to start giving your child vitamin and mineral supplements regularly:
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If your kid is not eating nutritious, balanced meals made out of fresh and whole-food ingredients regularly.
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If your child is one of the many picky eaters or doesn’t eat regularly.
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If your child is on medication for any chronic disease like asthma or digestive problems. Consider consulting your child's doctor first before putting them on supplements.
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You should consider getting your child a supplement if they have a lot of processed food, fast food, or convenience food. Not only are these food items are not healthy, but they also lack all the vital vitamins and minerals.
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If you feed your child a vegetarian or vegan diet, you may struggle to get adequate amounts of certain vitamins. A restricted diet, or dairy-free diet, may also require a few vitamins to ensure their diet supports kids healthy growth and development.
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If your child consumes too many carbonated drinks these tend to leach out all the necessary vitamins and minerals from the child’s body and will potentially slow growth and development.
How to Choose Vitamins for Kids?
Now that you know in what cases you need to start giving your child nutritional supplements or children's vitamins, it is time to understand how you can choose vitamin or mineral supplements, which supports healthy growth of your child:
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Ask Your Pediatrician
You can always go to a pediatrician or a healthcare professional to discuss your child’s diet or eating habits to ensure you find a product that supports healthy growth.
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Choose a Reliable Brand
After the healthcare professional has allowed you to start giving your kid supplements, the next main step is determining which one. There are a variety of brands offering growth vitamin supplements for kids that might confuse you a little bit. You can use a liquid vitamin, take one of the many chewable vitamins, or try a gummy multivitamin. Make sure to choose a reliable brand with a good reputation that offers tested products.
First Day is a trusted by over 70,000 families and is suitable for kids ages 3+. All our supplements go through extensive testing. These kids’ daily enrichment supplements have most of the micronutrients your child might need, which supports healthy growth and development and is gluten free.
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Find Vitamins Specifically Formulated for Children
Moreover, you need to consider when choosing the right vitamin supplements for your kid to check if they are explicitly made for children. Picky eating can be a reason to seek a supplement, but you need to ensure they do not have mega doses of micronutrients and is gluten free.
What are the Essential Vitamins and Minerals that Kids Need?
Some of the most critical micronutrients that any kid needs in an adequate amount of dietary supplements, which supports healthy growth of your child. Some of which are listed below.
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Vitamin A
Vitamin A has a variety of health benefits. It promotes proper growth and development, healthy skin, eyes, tissue, and bone health, bone repair, bone growth, and boosting overall immune health. Some good sources of Vitamin A include eggs, cheese, milk, liver, oily fish, yams, and yellow-to-orange vegetables like carrots, squash, etc.
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B Vitamins
There are multiple types of b vitamins, including vitamin B2, B3, B6, folic acid, and B12. This family of vitamin B helps with metabolism and is also responsible for energy production. Not only that, but these vitamins also help in maintaining a healthy circulatory and nervous systems. Some of the sources of Vitamin B include nuts, fish, eggs, meat, chicken, cheese, beans, and soybeans.
Moreover, Vitamin b12 also plays important role in producing healthy red blood cells.
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Vitamin C
Vitamin C is counted among the essential nutrients that aids in promoting healthy connective tissues, skin, and muscles in the human body. The food items containing Vitamin C include citrus fruits, tomatoes, kiwis, broccoli, strawberry, and green vegetables.
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Vitamin D
The main function of Vitamin D is to help the body absorb calcium and promote bone health, strong bones growth, and tooth formation. Some good sources of Vitamin D include fatty fish like mackerel and salmon and milk. Also, one of the best sources of Vitamin D is sunlight. You can also take a Vitamin D supplement to get instant results for a healthy children growth.
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Vitamin E
Vitamin E is a well-known nutrient for brain development and brain health. This is one of the vital nutrients that found in plant-based oils, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. However, you can opt for a kids vitamin if your kid is a picky eaters or have a picky eating habit to supply adequate nutrition.
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Calcium
As you might already know how important calcium is for healthy bone growth and helping children grow. Your child must consume an adequate amount of calcium during the bone growth stages. Some sources of calcium are milk, tofu, yogurt, cheese, and fortified foods like calcium-fortified orange juice.
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Iron
Among most essential nutrients and vitamins, iron ranked top. It's known for producing red blood cells and building muscles. Iron deficiency is quite common in adolescent years, especially in girls when they start to menstruate. Some of iron rich foods or sources include red meat, turkey, pork, spinach, beef, prunes, and beans. The First Day kid's gummy multivitamin is not an iron containing supplement because we've found children's vitamins typically contain too much iron. Which is why we do nut recommend using a supplement for iron.
What Vitamins and Minerals Precautions you must take?
Over dosage of anything can be risky and ruin your kid overall health, especially for children in a growing phase. Therefore, you must keep track of the supplements you give your child to avoid such circumstances. Especially fat-soluble vitamins, including A, D, E, and Vitamin K, can be toxic in the case of a mega dosage. You must also keep track of your child's iron intake.
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One of the most important measures you can take is to keep the vitamins out of reach of children.
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Instead of bribing your kid with candies to finish off their proper nutrition and balanced meal, you can give them vitamins as a reward.
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Make sure to give fat-soluble vitamins with the meal that will improve overall health.
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If your kid doesn’t like pills, a liquid supplement, or chewable vitamin, you can try giving them gummy vitamins.
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If you think your child has taken more vitamins or mineral supplements that they should, you should immediately consult the healthcare professional. In any case of emergency, you can also contact the poison control center right away.
What are the Nutrients Kids Need?
You might be wondering how you will know if your kid is mega-dosing or not. The amount of micronutrients your kid needs is greatly dependent on your child's age group to know what supports healthy growth and optimal health.
Health experts say that all children ages 2 to 8 require approximately 1000 to 1400 calories per day. While the children ages 9 to 13 need around 1400 to 2600 calories each day. This number can vary depending on the activity level of the kids.
But calories are not only what your child needs to take daily. There are various other micronutrients that your kid needs to take in adequate amounts for proper growth and development. Your child’s well balanced diet must meet the dietary supplements Reference Intakes (DRIs) mentioned below:
Recommended Dietary Allowances:
| Nutrient | DRI for ages 1 - 3 | DRI for ages 4 - 8 |
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Calcium |
700 mg |
1000 mg |
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Iron |
7 mg |
10 mg |
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Vitamin A |
300 mcg |
400 mcg |
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Vitamin B12 |
0.9 mcg |
1.2 mcg |
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Vitamin C |
15 mg |
25 mg |
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Vitamin D |
600 IU (15 mcg) |
600 IU (15 mg) |
Even though the table mentioned above consists of most of the essential vitamins and nutrients for your child needs, they are not the only ones. You might find others necessary, or you can consult your professional healthcare advisor or pediatrician.
There are multiple micronutrients, and children need all of them, but the quantity might vary depending on the kids ages and physical activity of the child. You must ensure that your child takes the optimal vitamins and minerals for healthy growth and development.
Why should you Choose First Day's Kids Daily Enrichment Gummy Multivitamin?
Are you unable to pay enough attention to your kid’s health due to a stressful work routine or household chores? Or is it that you cannot afford the expensive children’s supplements? In any such case, we have you covered. If you are a mom who is always concerned about if your child’s growth is normal then it's time you invest in some reliable supplements. Kids’ daily enrichment has all the essential vitamins and minerals except iron and calcium that kids ages 3+ might need for healthy development.
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Less Sugar
We use 80% less sugar in our supplements as we believe in the ‘less is more approach which makes us different from our competitors.
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High Quality RDV Ingredients
We utilize quality ingredients with the correct RDV to fit into your modern kid's diet. These supplements are also easily absorbed, and you will not have to force-feed your child these supplements.
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Exceptionally Healthy Blend
These supplements feature a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables and 9 super nutrients that ensure that your kid grows healthy. We promise reliability by testing the product through thirty different prototypes.
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Attractive Packaging and Delicious Taste
Your kid will be attracted to these cute little gummy vitamins that come beautiful packaging. They are visually attractive, but they also taste great, which will end mealtime battles with your kids. Also, we support environmentally-friendly items and therefore give you an eco-friendly packaging. Undoubtedly, kids’ daily multivitamin enriched supplements has everything you might need for your child.
Conclusion
We know how stressed you might be about your kid's health and future, but you no longer have to stress out if your kids are getting everything they need to growth healthy. Our Kids Multivitamin contain the essential vitamins and minerals your child needs. So, don't waste any more time and get these delicious gummy multivitamin for your kid.
Kristen Carli, MS, RD
Kristen Carli is the owner of Camelback Nutrition & Wellness. She graduated from University of Arizona with a BA in psychology and then received a BS in dietetics from Arizona State University. After completion of the dietetic internship, she continued her education by receiving a MS in Human Nutrition from University of Western States. Having a passion for nutrition communication, she has been featured in InStyle, Bustle, Livestrong, The List, MyFitnessPal and many others. Kristen was selected to act as a Produce for Better Health Foundation Fruit and Vegetable Ambassador in Action, helping to promote the health benefits and importance of consuming fruits and vegetables. You can find her reading, running, and exploring new restaurants with her husband. She also runs Mostly Green, a blog where she develops and shares simple plant-based recipes.
