Iron
On Monday I took Mina to her 2 year Pediatric appointment. She is big both height and weight-wise, but she is following along her percentile happily (she's actually dropped weight, proportionally). She's talking like crazy, very expressive, and we've gotten a hold for the most part on her sensitive skin issues. Colds/infections are less frequent.
She did have bloodwork, and it turns out she is slightly anemic! I'm right on the cusp: never diagnosed with it, but am always right there. So it doesn't surprise me. We could surely get more greens in our life. We do eat a good deal of good-quality (CSA) grass-fed beef, but that is a teeny portion of our diet. And the girl loves her dairy. Too much of that can contribute to anemia.
The Pedi suggested we give her 1/2 of a Flinstones Complete with Iron each day. Looking at the ingrediants, oh boy the crap that is in there! Not to mention sugar.
A coworker suggested checking out Whole Foods, and they do have some dye/crap free alternatives, but none with enough iron. 1/2 a Flinstones has 9mg of iron. The basic natural kid's vitamin with any iron has either 2 or 5.5 mgs. They did point out an iron-supplement, capsules with liquid in them, safe for kids. They are 20 mg, so we'd need to break open and take out around half of the liquid for her. Too much iron in a young kid can be very dangerous.
In an ideal world our diet would make up for all of this, but despite best efforts, we fall short.
I'm going to poke online a bit for another alternative. Any tips? A coworker did mention that perhaps the crap in the Flinstones would be a better alternative to anemia, and that we all took them as kids.
Have any of you parents dealt with this? Thanks in advance!
Related, her bloodwork for lead came back <3 this year, well under accepted limits. It was <1 last year, but now that she's into more stuff, it makes sense that it would be elevated.
Now the act of holding her so that they could actually take that blood: not fun at all. They went for a vein, and I had to hold her while she screamed and watched them take quite a bit of it. Thankfully, we aren't due back for a routine appointment now, for another year! Just crazy.
She did have bloodwork, and it turns out she is slightly anemic! I'm right on the cusp: never diagnosed with it, but am always right there. So it doesn't surprise me. We could surely get more greens in our life. We do eat a good deal of good-quality (CSA) grass-fed beef, but that is a teeny portion of our diet. And the girl loves her dairy. Too much of that can contribute to anemia.
The Pedi suggested we give her 1/2 of a Flinstones Complete with Iron each day. Looking at the ingrediants, oh boy the crap that is in there! Not to mention sugar.
A coworker suggested checking out Whole Foods, and they do have some dye/crap free alternatives, but none with enough iron. 1/2 a Flinstones has 9mg of iron. The basic natural kid's vitamin with any iron has either 2 or 5.5 mgs. They did point out an iron-supplement, capsules with liquid in them, safe for kids. They are 20 mg, so we'd need to break open and take out around half of the liquid for her. Too much iron in a young kid can be very dangerous.
In an ideal world our diet would make up for all of this, but despite best efforts, we fall short.
I'm going to poke online a bit for another alternative. Any tips? A coworker did mention that perhaps the crap in the Flinstones would be a better alternative to anemia, and that we all took them as kids.
Have any of you parents dealt with this? Thanks in advance!
Related, her bloodwork for lead came back <3 this year, well under accepted limits. It was <1 last year, but now that she's into more stuff, it makes sense that it would be elevated.
Now the act of holding her so that they could actually take that blood: not fun at all. They went for a vein, and I had to hold her while she screamed and watched them take quite a bit of it. Thankfully, we aren't due back for a routine appointment now, for another year! Just crazy.