Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Give your breastfed baby vitamins

If you're breastfeeding exclusively--particularly during the winter when babies get less exposure to sunlight--be sure to supplement with vitamin drops. According to the NY Times, rickets have shown up as an unexpected downside to the dramatic increase in breastfeeding rates. But don't give up nursing--just buy a cheap bottle of drops and make sure your baby is getting enough vitamin D.

Since Z was born in November, I was pretty religious about giving her those foul-smelling vitamins. I felt like I could get away with not supplementing Baby A since she was born in the summer and had started getting the occasional bottle of (vitamin-enriched) formula by the time she was 6 months old.