Children’s vitamins help provide children with a daily supplement of vitamins and minerals recommended for children. Children’s vitamins can be especially beneficial for younger children who have not yet developed healthy eating habits and remain picky about fruits, vegetables, and other foods they eat. There are several types of children’s vitamins, but children should not be given vitamins for adults as the recommended guidelines for adults is different than children.
For very young children, children’s vitamins come in liquid form. Many pediatricians recommend supplementing a baby’s diet with liquid vitamins. As a child ages into toddlerhood and develop teeth and chewing skills, they can be given chewable children’s vitamins.
Chewable children’s vitamins may be soft chew or hard chew. The soft chew vitamins resemble “gummy” candies, such as bears, and are flavored to be slightly sweet tasting. Soft chew children’s vitamins do not contain the same amount of vitamins and minerals per piece as the hard chew vitamins and thus, older children may need to chew two per day to receive the recommended allowance. At this stage, unless your child refuses to chew other vitamins, it makes sense to switch to hard chew children’s vitamins, as they are more economical, requiring only one vitamin per day.
Hard chew children’s vitamins are hard, but are easily broken when chewed. Popular children’s vitamins such as Flintstones, SpongeBob, Spiderman, and other similar characters, are hard chewable vitamins. Both hard chew and soft chew children’s vitamins are typically multi-vitamins, meaning they contain a certain amount of multiple vitamins and minerals, as recommended and allowed.
Other types of children’s vitamins are less common, but include quick-dissolve or rapid dissolve varieties. These usually come in the form of thin strips, placed on or under the tongue to dissolve. Not only are these vitamins less common, they are often comprised of only one specific vitamin, rather than being a multi-vitamin. Combining multiple vitamins and minerals into one chewable piece requires the use of fillers and binders, thus making the chewable capsules more common.
If you choose to supplement your child’s diet with vitamins, there are plenty of varieties to choose from that will make the daily task easier, but talk to your child’s pediatrician or physician about the appropriate varieties for their age and physical development.
