Multi Vitamins for Children
We recommend that you aim to get your nutrition primarily from food. A diet with multiple servings of vegetables and fruit per day, good quality protein sources (seeds, nuts, grass-fed/pastured meats and eggs, beans), and whole grains should provide most of the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that you need.
However, we recognize that some days, an ideal diet just doesn’t happen. For days when your child’s nutrition wasn’t the best, a multivitamin will help cover their nutritional needs. We also recommend multivitamins if they are feeling run down, stressed out, or recovering from an illness or injury.
Chewable Multivitamins:
Pure Pals with Iron: This is the best multivitamin for a child with iron-deficiency as it contains the highest amount of iron. Unfortunately, this means that this one tastes a bit metallic to some kids. We find that kids will often take this multivitamin for 2-3 months and then begin to refuse it. This is a chewable mutlivitamin, but it is a hard chewable, so your child will need to be able to chew a nut (like a cashew) in order to take this one. It costs $25.70 per bottle, which works out to $17.13/month if a child over 4yrs took a full dose every day.
ProThera VitaTab: This is our new favorite multivitamin choice for kids. It contains activated folic acid (also known as MTHF) and iron (however, less iron than Pure Pals contains). Kids tell us that this multivitamin is easier to chew or suck than Pure Pals. It costs $15.95 for one bottle, which will last 1 month if the full dose is taken daily. That is a great price for such a high quality multi!
Smarty Pants Kids Complete +Fiber: A gummy vitamin would not be our first choice, but among the gummy vitamins, this one comes out on top! It tastes so, so good and yet is lower in sugar than most other gummy vitamins on the market. It earned bonus points for also containing fiber, omega 3s, and a good dose of Vitamin D3. Since this vitamin does not contain iron, it is not appropriate for a child who is anemic or does not regularly eat iron-containing foods. Like most gummy multis, it is also missing magnesium, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, and molybdenum. Gummy vitamins tend to get stuck in the deep pockets of kids’ molars so it is important to brush after chewing this multi. It costs $30.95 per bottle which will last a month.
Capsule Multivitamin:
Thorne Children’s Basic Nutrients: This multivitamin comes in capsule form. The capsule is smaller than most adult supplements. Most children over age 5 can be taught how to swallow a capsule. If your child is unable to swallow a capsule, this multivitamin can also be opened up and mixed into applesauce or yogurt. This is an exceptionally high quality, high potency multivitamin that contains iron and activated folate (MTHF). The recommended dose is 6 capsules per day, which should be adjusted based on your child’s age and health status. At a full dose of 6 capsules per day, this multivitamin costs $22.60 per month.