Why I don’t stress about vitamins for my 8 and 12 year old
This morning I dug through the junk drawer by the front door looking for a band-aid to patch my 8 year old’s new blister—he got those scuffed-up high top sneakers he begged for last weekend, and they’re already eating through his heel—and I knocked over that giant bottle of gummy vitamins I bought back in December. It rolled under the shoe rack, and when I fished it out, the label was all sticky with old juice and it was still half full. I just stood there holding it, thinking about the checkup we had last month, when the pediatrician asked offhand if the kids were getting their daily vitamins, and I said “yeah, mostly” which was a lie. I hadn’t remembered to hand one out in, I don’t know, six weeks? Maybe longer.
When my oldest was 7, I was on top of this stuff so hard it was almost a personality trait. I set an alarm on my phone for 8:15 every morning, right after breakfast. I bought the fancy organic ones with no added sugar and no artificial dyes, cost me like $30 a bottle, and I’d hand one out each to both kids, stand there while they ate it, just to make sure they didn’t spit it in the trash. I was in all these mom groups back then, and everyone was talking about how picky kids this age are all deficient in iron and vitamin D and B12, and how if you don’t supplement they’ll be tired all the time and their growth will be stunted, and I bought into it whole. I didn’t want to be the mom that forgot something that easy.
Then my oldest turned 10, and suddenly she was too old for me to hand her vitamins every morning. “I got it, Mom,” she’d say, roll her eyes, so I moved the bottle to the bathroom counter, right by her toothbrush. And for a week she’d remember, then she’d get busy with soccer practice and staying up late reading graphic novels and forgetting to brush her hair, and the vitamins just… got lost in the shuffle. My youngest, when he hit 7, decided the vitamins tasted like “strawberry scented plastic” and started hiding them under his mattress. I found three half-chewed ones when I changed his sheets a couple months ago. I tried the chewable Flintstone ones, he said they were too chalky. I tried the liquid iron stuff once, when he had a string of colds last winter and I panicked that he was low on nutrients. That stuff cost $28 for a tiny bottle, and it tasted like metallic banana, and he hated it so much he’d gag just looking at it, and it turned his front teeth gray for a whole week. We went and got blood work done after that, just to ease my mind, and everything was totally normal. The gray teeth went away after a week of extra brushing, and I threw the rest of the iron stuff out.
I had that awkward moment at my niece’s 11th birthday party back in March, standing by the snack table holding a paper plate with half a chocolate cupcake, when another mom started talking about her kid’s supplement routine. She had a whole list: vitamin D for mood, omega 3s for focus, iron for energy, probiotics for gut health. She turned to me and asked what I gave my kids, and I just froze. I couldn’t even think of the last time we’d had vitamins in the house that we actually used. I said “uh, I pretty much just leave it on the counter, if they remember they take it” and she gave me this look, like I’d just said I let them drink soda for breakfast every day. I just took a bite of my cupcake and changed the subject to how good the cake was, because what are you gonna do? I was already there with a crumpled gift card instead of the wrapped present I promised I’d bring, I wasn’t about to get into a fight about vitamins at a kid’s birthday party.
The thing is, I get it. This age—7 to 14, right? It’s such a weird in-between. They’re not toddlers where you control every single thing that goes into their mouth. They’re not adults where they can be trusted to remember every tiny daily thing. All my kids eat 90% of the time is chicken nuggets, peanut butter sandwiches, corn, and whatever granola bar they grab on the way out the door to school. I know that’s not the ideal balanced diet people post about on Instagram. But my pediatrician told me something that stuck, last checkup. She said 9 times out of 10, even picky kids this age get enough nutrients from the food they do eat. Vitamin D? They get it from milk, from cereal, from 20 minutes outside running around at recess most days. Iron? It’s in bread, it’s in peanut butter, it’s in the chicken nuggets. It adds up, even if it doesn’t look like a perfect plate. The only time you really need to add vitamins is if they have an actual deficiency, or they’re vegetarian or vegan, or they have some other condition that messes with their absorption. Otherwise, it’s just a safety net, not something you need to lose sleep over.
I still buy the vitamins, for what it’s worth. I still have that half bottle I found this morning. I shook out two gummies after I patched the blister, handed one to each kid. My 8 year old popped his in his mouth immediately, because he likes sugar even if he doesn’t like the vitamin part. My 12 year old stuffed hers in her hoodie pocket, said she’d eat it after school. I know better. That thing is gonna end up in the washing machine, all gooey and melted all over her favorite hoodie, just like the last one did three months ago. I don’t yell about it anymore. I used to, when I was younger and newer at this mom thing, I’d get so mad that they forgot, like it was some big failure on my part. Now I just think, okay. If she goes three months without a vitamin, she’s not gonna drop dead. If I remember for a whole week, that’s a win. If I forget for three months, that’s fine too.
I don’t have some big neat conclusion here. I don’t think everyone should stop giving their kids vitamins, or that vitamins are a scam. I just think, for this age, when everything is half done and half remembered and everyone is just trying to get through the day without forgetting anyone’s soccer cleats or lunchbox, it’s okay to let this one slide sometimes. It’s just a vitamin. It’s not the end of the world. (Word count: 1142)
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