u/AnastasiaGlover1

Have you ever noticed any of these signs in your child before finding out their iron was low? Or was it something you discovered through routine bloodwork? I’d be really interested to hear what symptoms you noticed first.

Iron deficiency doesn’t always look obvious. Some symptoms can easily be mistaken for a picky eater, a tired kid, or just a “phase.”

Some possible signs include:

1. Pale skin, lips, or nail beds
2. Unusual tiredness even after getting enough sleep
3. Low energy or weakness during normal activities
4. Irritability or mood changes
5. Getting out of breath easily during physical activity
6. Poor appetite or very picky eating
7. Slower growth
8. Getting sick frequently
9. Brittle or easily cracked nails
10. Difficulty concentrating at school or during activities

Of course, none of these symptoms automatically mean a child is iron deficient there can be many other explanations.

And kids' iron needs vary by age.

https://preview.redd.it/mbh9dt6221uh1.png?width=592&format=png&auto=webp&s=f21f0d4140a86cb060aa1d5a27931398439e2edd

This one seems to come up in every house with a teenage boy now. Around one in six 12th grade boys is using it, and it roughly doubled in five years.

The problem is you get two completely different answers depending on who you ask.Pediatricians and the AAP say not under 18. Their reasoning is mostly that nobody has studied it properly in teenagers a review this year found five decent studies, all short and supervised, which is nothing like a 15 year old taking it for three years. Sports nutrition people say it's one of the safest supplements there is, and that the "18+" on the tub is a lawyer thing, not a science thing. Which is also true.

Two bits that stuck with me. It's unregulated, so what's in the tub is a coin flip depending on brand. And it raises creatinine in blood tests, which is the number doctors use to check kidneys so it can muddy the exact test you'd want.

What did you actually say when yours asked

Sources :

https://www.cureus.com/articles/471288-evaluating-the-safety-of-creatine-monohydrate-in-adolescents-a-systematic-review-of-renal-hepatic-and-cardiometabolic-outcomes

https://news.umich.edu/steroid-use-falls-but-creatine-use-climbs-rapidly/

Medical Daily — Creatine Use Among U.S. Teenagers Doubled in 5 Years

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00115/full

https://health.choc.org/should-teens-use-creatine/

Every year the same argument comes up, and both sides have a real case.

Camp one: it's exposure, full stop. A new classroom means 25 new kids, shared desks, shared air, and hands that touch everything. Around 25% of all children's asthma hospital stays happen in September, and viruses drive roughly 80% of childhood asthma attacks. That's a virus story, not a feelings story.

Camp two: exposure doesn't explain the timing. Kids are around other kids all year. The spike isn't spread out, it lands in the first few weeks. A review of 300+ studies found that brief real-life stressors school exams were the named example suppress cellular immunity specifically, which is the branch that handles respiratory viruses. And when researchers deliberately dosed volunteers with a cold virus, those sleeping under 5 hours were about 4.5x more likely to actually get sick.

One deflating detail for both camps: in that same review, how stressed people said they were generally didn't match the immune changes measured in their blood. So "my kid seems fine" isn't evidence either way.

Which camp are you in?

Gut stuff is now the biggest category in kids' supplements. Bigger than immunity, bigger than sleep. So a lot of us are buying these.

Problem is the evidence can't make up its mind.

The big Cochrane review found probiotics cut repeat infections by about 41%, and cut the number of kids ending up on antibiotics by about 42%. Decent quality evidence.

Then a new analysis this year compared seven supplements across 11,576 kids and probiotics didn't beat placebo at all.

And the annoying part for both sides: it only works for specific strains, and most tubs don't tell you which strain they used.

So which is it. Anyone here actually noticed a difference, or is this one of those things we keep buying because stopping feels risky

What vitamins and minerals are most important for kids as they grow? I’m thinking about things like vitamin D, iron, magnesium, zinc, calcium, etc. Which ones do you think are especially important to pay attention to?

Trying to work out what's normal practice, because I'm getting different answers everywhere.

Two things I keep running into:

Hemoglobin only drops after iron stores are already empty. Ferritin is the one that shows it early. But most kids seem to get hemoglobin only.

And labs flag ferritin as normal from about 12-15, while the newer hematology guidance says under 20 is low for a young child and under 30 for a teen who's menstruating.

So:

Did yours run ferritin, or just hemoglobin?
If ferritin came back somewhere in the teens, did your doctor treat it as fine or as low?
Anyone been told to retest because the first one was drawn while the kid was sick?

Genuinely just want to know how this is being handled in practice.

Which number are you actually giving, and does it change between summer and winter?

Above about 40°N — Boston, Chicago, New York, most of Europe — skin makes essentially no vitamin D from November to early March. Ten degrees further north and that window runs October to April. Sun exposure stops being a source for roughly a third to half the year.

So winter is the one time almost everyone agrees kids should be getting vitamin D from somewhere. The disagreement is how much.

The official numbers: RDA is 600 IU a day for every kid aged 1-18. Upper limits are 2,500 IU for age 3, 3,000 IU for 4-8, and 4,000 IU for 9 and up.

Two camps:

Camp 1 — 600 IU, year round, done. It's the RDA for a reason, it was set for the general population including people who get no sun, and winter doesn't change the requirement. Anything more is guessing.

Camp 2 — go higher in winter. The Endocrine Society's range for kids is 300-2,000 IU, so 1,000-2,000 sits inside official guidance, not outside it. If the body's own production drops to zero for four months, matching that with the bare minimum seems optimistic.

Worth knowing before anyone goes big: more is not linearly better. The upper limits above are real, and vitamin D is fat-soluble, so it accumulates.

I started with one basic supplement but there always seems to be another product recommended for sleep, digestion or immunity. Do you use several consistently, rotate them depending on what’s happening or only add something when your pediatrician identifies a need? I’m curious how other parents avoid making the routine overwhelming.

If your child needs a supplement but refuses to take it, what has actually worked for you?

Do you switch between gummies, liquids, powders, or chewables? Do you involve them in choosing the flavor or make it part of a daily routine?

I feel like sometimes the biggest challenge isn’t choosing the supplement — it’s getting kids to take it consistently.

Would love to hear what worked with your child and what definitely didn’t

How many actual tastes before your kid came round on something? And did it stick or did they go back to refusing it two weeks later

Everyone says it takes like 10-15 tries before a picky kid accepts a new food.

Went looking for where that number comes from. In the actual studies, a "try" means a taste. Food sitting on the plate untouched was specifically not counted.

So all those dinners where I served broccoli and it came back cold — those weren't the 10 tries. I've been counting plates.

To be fair nobody proved plate-only doesn't work, they just didn't measure it. But I'm aiming for one tiny taste now instead of a full portion.

Other thing worth knowing: it carries over within a category but not across. Win on one vegetable and other vegetables get easier. Does nothing for fruit.

Anyone here using melatonin for their kid — did your pediatrician suggest trying behavioral/sleep-routine changes first, or did you go straight to supplementing?

Melatonin gummies are everywhere now, so I looked into what the actual evidence says before giving them to my own kid.short-term, low-dose melatonin appears relatively safe for many kids under a pediatrician's guidance, but it's not a first-line fix and it's not risk-free.

What stood out to me:

**•**	The American Academy of Pediatrics says more research is needed on long-term effects — most studies only look at short-term use.  
**•**	It's sold as a supplement, not an FDA-approved kids' medication, so quality and actual dosage can vary between brands. One study found real melatonin content didn't always match the label.  
**•**	Doctors generally start at the lowest effective dose for a child's age and increase only under supervision — "more" doesn't mean "better sleep," and higher doses mainly just add next-day grogginess.  
**•**	It's meant for a specific sleep problem, short-term — not as a nightly tool for kids who could achieve normal sleep with better bedtime habits.

The part that actually worries me more than dosing: accidental ingestion. Poison control centers handle huge numbers of unsupervised pediatric melatonin cases every year — CDC data shows a sharp rise in ER visits tied to kids getting into melatonin gummies on their own, mostly toddlers and preschoolers, since they're marketed and flavored just like candy.

So if you're considering melatonin for your child, talk to your pediatrician first, use the smallest effective amount, and — separate from dosing entirely — store it like a medication, not a snack, because the "kid got into the bottle" scenario seems to be the bigger real-world risk.

My kid asked for creatine last week because half his team is on it. I said I'd look into it, mostly to buy time. Here's where I landed, and I'm still not sure what to do.

First thing that surprised me is how normal this has become. There's a big national survey tracking this stuff, and between 2019 and 2024 creatine use among teen boys went from about 8.7% to 16.6%. Doubled in five years. Girls went from 1.2% to 3.3%. The researchers tied it to gym culture on social media, which tracks with what my son watches.

Second thing: steroid use in teens has actually been falling that whole time. So it's not like everything is getting worse. This one thing is just getting much bigger, fast.

Third thing, and this is where I got stuck. Creatine is one of the most studied supplements out there — in adults. In teenagers it's close to a blank page. A review this year found only five studies solid enough to say anything about safety in kids, and all of them were short and supervised. Nobody has studied what happens when a 15 year old takes it unsupervised for three years, which is what's actually happening.

The detail that genuinely bothered me: creatine raises creatinine in blood tests, which is the number doctors use to check kidney function. It goes up whether or not anything is wrong. So the standard test gets harder to read exactly in the group we have the least data on.

To be fair, the sports nutrition side says it's fine for adolescents with decent product quality and sane dosing. And the "not for under 18" label on the tub is a legal thing, not a research finding. So it's not clear cut either way.

Anyway I still haven't given him an answer.

Has your teen asked for this, and what did you end up saying?

TL;DR: Food beats salt substitutes for kids. Potassium-enriched/iodized salt subs are an adult blood-pressure tool, not a pediatric nutrition strategy — talk to your pediatrician before using one for a child.

Been researching this after seeing salt substitutes marketed as an "easy" way to boost potassium. Here's what I found:

What actually works — food:

• Bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, avocado, dried apricots
• Potatoes/sweet potatoes (skin on), spinach, tomatoes, beans
• Milk and yogurt
• Rough target: 1–2 cups fruit + 1–2½ cups veg/day for kids, more for teens

Why I wouldn't reach for potassium salt substitutes for kids:

**•**	These swap out sodium chloride for potassium chloride (sometimes still iodized) — they're formulated for adults trying to lower blood pressure, not for pediatric potassium fortification.  
**•**	Potassium excretion depends on healthy kidneys. Certain conditions or meds impair that, and too much potassium too fast can cause dangerous hyperkalemia.  
**•**	Even standalone potassium supplements are capped by regulation at \~99mg per dose — a tiny fraction of the \~4,700mg adult RDA — specifically *because* over-supplementing potassium is risky. That's a strong signal it's not something to dose casually, especially in a kid.

So if you're worried about your child's potassium intake, food sources are the safe default. If you're considering a salt substitute or any supplement specifically for a child, that's a "call the pediatrician" conversation, not a "swap the salt shaker" one — dosing needs and kidney considerations are different for kids than adults.

what's worked for picky eaters in this sub — anyone found good ways to sneak potassium-rich foods in?

I always assumed water-soluble vitamins were basically impossible to overdo. Take too much, you pee it out, no harm done. Turns out B6 doesn't work like that.

Too much of it over a long stretch can damage sensory nerves. Tingling and numbness in the hands and feet, balance getting off. It creeps up over months or years, so nobody connects it to a supplement they've been taking the whole time. And it doesn't always fully go away.

What got me looking into this is that Australia's regulator has logged 279 possible nerve damage reports tied to B6 since 2020, and their expert panel just proposed dropping the adult safe limit from 50 mg a day to 14 mg. That's a 72% cut. Apparently the old 50 mg number came from a handful of small studies from decades ago.

Then I looked up the US limits for kids:

• 1–3 years: 30 mg
• 4–8 years: 40 mg
• 9–13 years: 60 mg
• 14–18 years: 80 mg

So a toddler's ceiling is more than double what they're now proposing for a grown adult. Different countries and different methods, sure, but that gap is odd.

The part that actually made me go check cupboards is where B6 hides. It gets added to magnesium supplements, multivitamins, energy drinks, protein shakes. Almost nobody buys it deliberately. One of the reported cases came from a magnesium product someone took for two years.

To be clear I'm not trying to scare anyone. A normal kids' multi has like 1–2 mg in it, which is nothing. It's stacking three or four products that each quietly contain some that adds up.

Anyway — go look at what's in your cupboard. What's the highest B6 number you find, and what's it in?

The AAP updated its guidance on iron deficiency in kids this year. It replaces the 2010 version, and the practical part is worth knowing.

The main change: ferritin, not just hemoglobin.

Most kids get a hemoglobin check. But hemoglobin only drops after iron stores are already empty. Ferritin shows the stores themselves. So a kid can be iron deficient for months with a "normal" result.

The new advice is CBC plus serum ferritin together.

Cutoffs they give:

• Young and school-age kids: ferritin ≤20 ng/mL
• Teens and anyone menstruating: ≤30 ng/mL

When to screen:

• Breastfed babies: 9–12 months
• Formula-fed: 15–18 months, after switching to cow milk
• Kids with risk factors: every well-child visit until age 4
• Teens who menstruate: one year after their first period, and no later than 14

That last one is new and easy to miss. Heavy periods plus a low-iron diet is a very common combination.

One risk factor that surprises people: too much cow milk. It's on the list.

Important: this is guidance about testing, not about starting iron. Iron is one of the few supplements where guessing is genuinely risky — too much is harmful, and it's a common cause of serious poisoning in small kids. Test first, then treat with your pediatrician.

So when your kid had bloodwork, did they run ferritin, or only hemoglobin?

I feel like this is one of those topics where every parent does something different.

If your child is a picky eater, do you give them a daily multivitamin, or do you mostly rely on food and just keep offering variety?

I’m especially curious about kids who go through phases where they suddenly stop eating vegetables, meat, or other foods they used to like.

Did you decide on a vitamin yourself, or was it something your pediatrician recommended?

Would love to hear what other parents are doing and what age your child is.

When do you usually take iron supplements? Morning, afternoon, or evening? I’m curious if you’ve found a time that works best for you, especially when it comes to energy or avoiding stomach discomfort.

Something I keep going back and forth on.

Most people here take a real stack. Five, ten things. All of it thought through.

But the official advice for kids says the opposite. The AAP says healthy kids who eat a normal diet don't need any supplements. The only exception is vitamin D — 400 IU for babies, 600 IU after that. That's it.

Then I looked at what parents actually do, and it got weird.

About 34% of US kids take supplements. Highest in ages 2–5, where it's 43%.

But look at the income split. Poor families: 23.5%. Higher-income families: 45.9%.

So the kids most likely to have gaps in their diet are the ones getting supplements the least. And the kids getting a daily multivitamin are mostly the ones who already eat fine.

Two ways to read that. Either the AAP is too strict and we're right to supplement. Or we just copy our own habits onto our kids, and most of the kids' market exists because it makes parents feel better.

I don't know which one is true.

So what do you actually give your own kids? And why is their list shorter than yours?