Vitamin D Day

What does Sunday 31st March mean to you?  It's Easter Sunday, yes.  It's the first day of British Summer Time.  You've lost an hour's sleep.  You've got to plan some horrible trick to play on your other half tomorrow morning.  But as well as all that, it's the first ever Vitamin D Day!

The Growing Up Milk-man!

Dr Chris Steele (him off This Morning!) has joined forces with Growingupmilkinfo.com to launch Vitamin D Day, aiming to address parents' misconceptions about Vitamin D, and raise awareness of the role diet can play in supplying this essential vitamin.  I was shocked to read that British toddlers are only getting 27% of their daily recommended Vitamin D intake, especially when it's one of the easiest vitamins to increase in a toddler's diet.

While Vitamin D is naturally produced in the body with exposure to sunlight, there is only so much sunlight in the UK, and if the sunshine isn't there, you can't get out in it, as well as the associated skin cancer risks.  Oily fish, eggs and breakfast cereals are other dietary sources of Vitamin D, which helps children absorb calcium and develop strong & healthy bones & teeth.  I've had a number of bone injuries myself, so I'm eager to make sure Squeaky's bones are as strong as can be so she avoids similar problems when she grows up.  2 beakers of Growing Up Milk provides 73% of the daily requirement, so it sounds simple to me.

Squeaky is still a fussy eater, even at the ripe old age of three, so I do look out for ways to make sure she gets the balanced nutrition she needs.  Growing Up Milk is something that's been part of our lives ever since I went back to work & finished breastfeeding, and I'm confident that it's helping to support her development.

One thing I really like about the growingupmilkinfo.com website is their toddler meal planner. I've found it quite hard to find out what portion sizes a child should be eating, and whether or not Squeaky is eating enough.  I've found this is really useful to put my mind at ease about how much a portion should be, and given me a few ideas for other things to try with Squeaky.  We're getting there, slowly.

Disclosure: Statistical information in this post has been provided by growingupmilkinfo.com. I have not received payment for this post, and have not been told what to write. I have chosen to share this information because I found it of interest & relevance to my own situation, and hoped it to be of use to others. The choice whether or not to breastfeed, and when to cease doing so, is a personal one, please read my other posts on the subject.

Toddlers have got a lot on their plates!

Well, actually, Squeaky hasn't today.  Our conversations today have gone like this:
What do you want for lunch, Squeaky?
Cake.
Not cake. Would you like some fishcake?
Cake.
Cake AFTER. Would you like to try some fishcake, please?
Chips and sauce!
And fishcake, please.
Cake!

(She did eventually eat some of her fishcake, and I ate all of mine.)

The Toddler Census found that 78% of parents think their toddlers nutritional needs will be met if they eat the same meals as the rest of the family.  But the reality is, our toddlers' nutritional needs are quite different to our own. Pound for pound, toddlers need nearly three times as much energy from food as adults, more than 4 times more iron & vitamin C, about 3 times as much calcium, zinc & vitamin A, more fat and less salt than in an adult's diet.  And when your toddler decides that all they want to eat today is cake, that's hard to achieve.

To put it another way, to keep up with the amount of growing, learning & developing our toddlers do between the ages of 12 months - 3 years, if they were adult sized, their daily diet would need to be about 7000 calories, rather than the 2000 of a "normal" adult diet.  Or...

Click to enlarge

4 bowls of cereal
4 bananas
3 apples
2 cheese sandwiches
8 cereal bars
4 slices of bread & butter
3 portions of fish
3 portions of rice
5 full fat yogurts
nearly 2 pints of Growing Up Milk
And a partridge in a pear tree!


(Only joking about that last one!).  I feel full just looking at that list.  Stick a pepperoni pizza, a bacon sarnie and a few dozen cups of coffee in there & I'd be done for the week!

The same research showed that more than 29% of toddlers have refused to eat healthy foods (and I didn't know Squeaky had taken the questionnaire!), and why more than 16% of parents find cooking different foods for their toddlers stressful & worrying.  I know there are days when it would be so much easier to just give in to Squeaky's demands for toast, cake, chips & sauce, but she doesn't understand what her body needs to keep her fuelled for throwing herself down slides, chasing boys and singing Row Row Row Your Boat.

That's where Growing Up Milk comes in.  Knowing that 2 beakers of Growing Up Milk a day will help to meet her needs, with added vitamins A, C & D, calcium, iron & omega 3 means I can rest a little easier.  It's not a substitute for a balanced diet, but it helps even things out.

There's loads more information at http://www.growingupmilkinfo.com/ on toddlers' nutritional needs, and hints & tips on dealing with fussy eaters.  Do go over and have a look around.

Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk are sponsoring me to attend the CybHer conference in May 2012.  The statistical data in this post came from The Toddler Census, a questionnaire answered by over 1000 parents in July 2011.

Nature's Plus Animal Parade Vitamins Review

Gosh, is it 2012 already? 11 days in and not a Squeak!  It's been kind of busy around here with Christmas, New Year's, my birthday, the impending SqueakyBirthday, and general STUFF, but hey, we're back.  Did you miss us?

Well anyways.  You remember not long back, I posted about Vitamin D deficiencies in toddlers?  It was quite apt that Nature's Plus sent me some of their Animal Parade vitamins for Squeaky to try, following that post.  I got a bottle of multivitamin, and a pack of samples of Vitamin D3.  They're normally recommended for children aged 2 and over, so as Squeaky isn't 2 until next week, I checked with my health visitor that it was OK for her to take them, and she was quite happy. I'd advise you to seek appropriate advice if you're not sure whether supplements are suitable for your child.

The vitamin supplements are tailored for children's needs, and are sugar free, vegetarian & have natural flavourings.  The tablets are animal shaped (I've seen  hippos, elephants, lions & tigers so far, but there may be more!) and are chewable.  Here's a learning point for me.  Chewable is not the same as chewy.  Chewy is jelly-like, or like chewits.  Chewable is hard, solid tablets that you can crunch or suck, like polos.  I didn't know this, so I was a bit surprised to find hard tablets & not the jellies I was expecting.

That didn't stop Squeaky enjoying them.  The multivitamins are natural cherry flavour & the Vitamin D3 are black cherry (I'm not quite sure of the difference, but I have the same problem with yogurts!), which seemed to go down very well.  I don't like artificial fruit flavours, so it was good to see that the flavours were natural.  The tablets are coloured with rosehip, which makes them look quite pretty, BUT.  If your child is anything like Squeaky, the tablets will be in & out of their mouths really quite a bit.  Not because she didn't like it, just because it was something new & she needed to look at it.  A lot.  Thankfully, with the colours being natural, they washed off her face easily, and came out of her pyjamas in a single wash, so no worries there. (Yes. I know. They're boy's PJs. She chose them and wouldn't let go.)

It's hard to tell with a toddler whether a supplement is doing any good.  Let's face it, they're whirlwinds at the best of times, so the judgement can only really come with whether or not she likes them.  She's come back for more every day so far, so that seems to be a positive reaction from a very fussy eater.

I'm glad to have found something that she will happily take, I do honestly worry about what she eats, even though I know she's just being a toddler, and being fussy because she can.  There's only so much toast & marmite that one child can eat, so including a daily vitamin supplement means I can be confident that she's getting the balance she needs.  It won't stop me trying to get her to eat a more varied diet, but it does stop me worrying if she doesn't.

Nature's Plus Animal Parade vitamins are available through Amazon and other sources. (I am not an Amazon Affiliate, I will not gain anything through use of this link)

Disclosure: I was provided with a bottle of multivitamins & a pack of Vitamin D3 tablets free of charge for the purpose of this review.  I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme & will not receive reward for their use.

Vitamin D - The Sunshine Vitamin

Vitamin D is really, honestly, quite easy to come by.  It's free, and made naturally in our bodies as a result of exposure to sunlight.  Trouble is, there's not a lot of that around at the moment (you might have noticed!), and shockingly, 9 out of 10 toddlers aren't getting enough Vitamin D to meet their nutritional needs, either naturally or through supplements.

Vitamin D helps with bone growth, and can prevent rickets in children, and osteoporosis in adults, as it helps regulate the calcium levels in the body.  That's something I know about, thanks to a couple of broken ankles, and surgeons giving me dire threats about bone density scans & the like.

Our lifestyles have changed so much over the last 30 years or so, modern toddlers don't get the same levels of Vitamin D that their parents and grandparents did.  Reliance on cars for even short journeys, greatly increased use of sunscreen, more time spent in front of the tv & computer rather than "playing out", all reduce the amount of exposure to sunlight and therefore the amount of Vitamin D floating around in children's bodies.

Image Credit

So, what can we do?  Get out in the sunshine!  Ten minutes a day through the summer months (April - October), without sunscreen, can give a child enough exposure to the sun's rays to produce enough Vitamin D to store in their bodies for the winter.  But really, do we risk our toddlers' skin with exposure to the sun without sunscreen?  And even if we did, that's not going to be enough for some people.  Those living in the north (sorry Northerners!), and those with Black or Asian skin won't get enough sunlight this way, so something else is needed.

The Department of Health recommends all toddlers receive a daily supplement of Vitamins A, C & D.  Those who receive milk tokens (or Healthy Start tokens to give them their proper name) are also entitled to free supplements, and in certain areas of the UK, you may be able to get free supplements from your health visitor even if you're not on benefits(though you might well have to ask).

In addition to a supplement, you can try to include Vitamin D rich foods in your toddler's diet. A lot of breakfast cereals & margarines are fortified with vitamins, another good reason not to skip breakfast!  Oily fish, egg yolks and liver are also good sources of Vitamin D (and yeah, good luck with those).

You can also include a specially formulated Growing-Up milk into your toddler's day.  Squeaky is a DEMON for being a fussy eater at the moment, but two beakers of Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk gives her more than half her daily Vitamin D requirements, so I know she's off to a good start each day, even if she spends the rest of the day refusing to consider anything other than toast.

Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk are sponsoring me to attend the CybHer conference in May 2012.  The statistical data in this post came from The Toddler Census, a questionnaire answered by over 1000 parents in July 2011.