Non milk drink

[sandandsea]

I don’t have time to research this fully and could use advice from those who have. Both of my boys (6 & 1) have iron deficiency anemia. The doctors have limited their dairy intake significantly.

For school lunches we can choose OJ or apple juice instead of milk. So should I choose a juice or just give them water? I don’t love the idea of juice and extra sugar and don’t know if the teachers can water it down for Ds2. Which juice is better?

Or do I just never give milk at home and only let them have it at lunch? So far this is what I’ve done.

[2chatter]

Why is dairy limited? Can you work on the iron through food instead of drinks? What we do here to balance DD is she has a selection of things she HAS TO eat every day. She chooses which ones, but knows the combinations (before she really “got it” I would package in ziplocks/lists). Then you can let the drink question go...if you cover that base elsewhere. It’s what kept me sane. Solve the actual problem and then none of the details matter - before I would resolve one thing (like snack mid morning) and create another problem with her not wanting lunch, etc. so I reverse engineered from her needs with a baseline caloric requirement and then she can have whatever else she wants.

[sunbutter]

For the six year old, I vote water. I would lean toward water for the one year old but I would double check with the doc.
I would avoid juice unless it is a special occasion.

[phdmomma]

Dd just got an iron deficient diagnoses today. They told us that essentially anything with calcium inhibits the iron uptake. She's lactose intolerant, but unfortunately gopher non dairy milk and yogurt are fortified. I don't worry too much about sugar, I would send juice. But that's just so they get enough calories, because my kids are super thin.

[waverly]

I send juice in the summer because they are running and swimming all day at summer camp and I figure they need the calories. Maybe water for the school year?

[mae0111]

My understanding is that OJ helps with the absorption of iron when taken with iron-rich food. If you’re sneaking iron-rich foods into lunch, OJ wouldn’t be bad.

[k3am]

sandandsea, if you need to limit milk, I would entirely nix it at daycare. Our reports are so uncertain how much he gets.. Sometimes sips, sometimes 1/3 cup (but a measuring cup? Or whatever size cup they happen to be using?)

I’d personally just vote water in generally. I actually wish I could get DH on board with limiting milk.

[mommyatty]

We do water for lunch anyway. If DD buys lunch at school, she gets the choice of milk or juice. She gets milk. But DH still sends her thermos with water and she usually drinks that instead of the milk.

Interestingly, in Texas, at daycares, they can only serve water with lunches. But not at elementary school. Makes absolutely no sense, but it is what it is.

[traveltheworld]

Don't mean to hijack the thread - but how did you figure out that your child has an iron deficiency? DD is very small and barely eats any meat, so I'm always concerned. But at our last checkup our (new) doctor said as long as she is staying on her growth curve and seems well in general, he is not inclined to test for anything.

[sandandsea]

Jan 30, 2018 22:46:40 GMT -5 traveltheworld said:

Don't mean to hijack the thread - but how did you figure out that your child has an iron deficiency? DD is very small and barely eats any meat, so I'm always concerned. But at our last checkup our (new) doctor said as long as she is staying on her growth curve and seems well in general, he is not inclined to test for anything.

At their one year appointments they do a finger prick test. Ds1 was low and went through multiple blood draws and specialists to confirm no underlying issues, just iron deficiency anemia. Ds2 had almost the exact same numbers at his one year appt. so we have to give vitamins with iron, limit milk, iron rich diets, etc. both had a 10.5 at the finger prick a couple of weeks ago. Ds1 (6) just went through a huge growth spurt so o think that drove it. And Ds2 (1.5) is in a constant growth stage now so I think that’s probably the root right now. Basically they want to confirm the milk limitation and iron supplements will work to get their levels up before they subject Ds2 to the additional tests because they suck. Both are on great growth curves, smart, active, energetic, healthy boys and you would have never known as they have NO symptoms. (Not pale, lethargic, etc).

[phdmomma]

traveltheworld, Our route to finding out DD is iron deficient was a bit different. She had a rather large health scare in August, which still isn't fully unraveled, but lead to a lot of blood tests. At the time they were much more worried about some of the other numbers than the iron issue. We just had another follow up blood test yesterday and she is still iron deficient, and does not have an adequate quantity of stored iron. Either this could be due to not having enough iron or something else that we have yet to unravel (it's been a process, but we have ruled a lot of super scary things out). So we are starting with the iron supplements and rechecking her iron levels in 3 months, along with the rest of her blood work, which still isn't quite right, but is way better than in August.

[sandandsea]

It’s been a challenge to keep DS1 up on his levels. But all of the tests ruled out the scary causes and it ended with just IDA. With every growth spurt they go back down and he’s basically on vitamins with iron indefinitely. Thankfully now that he’s older they’re easier to find. The infant drops are harder because they’re messy and cause tooth discoloration.

I decided to try the OJ for Ds2 to increase vitamin C. They said it’s real 100% OJ and not and oj drink and no added sugar.
For ds1 I’m going to let him have milk at lunch and none at home.

[traveltheworld]

sandandsea, is a finger prick test standard for one year old appointments? I'm just surprised they did that if he showed no symptoms.

phdmomma, sorry about your DD and the health scare. DS had a health scare when he was three and we ran all sorts of blood tests too. Nothing was found except that his white blood cells were enlarged, we got referred to a hematologist, and had to repeat testing every 3 months. The white blood cell thing normalized after about 6 months, then his thyroid levels were off, and the list continued. So for about 18 months, every time we did a blood test, something different would be slightly off. It was never the same thing and it was never abnormal enough to warrant immediate action, but it seemed like the kid just could not get a normal blood panel.

Happy to report that he seems fine now. We haven't done a blood test in 12 months, and our new family doctor sees no reason to, so I'm just going to leave it.

[phdmomma]

traveltheworld, It's good to hear that your DS is better these days. She ended up in the hospital with suspected Kowasaki's disease (which was eventually ruled out with an echocardiogram), because she ESR score was 100 and she had bright red eyes (along with things like an elevated white count), and a normal top score for kids is 10. Yesterday she was at 11, so she has been trending down. I like the approach our family doctor is taking, where we worry about and rule out one thing at a time. Currently we are on to wether the anemia is caused by just an iron issue or if there is an underlying issue causing the anemia. So far we've ruled out everything from Lyme disease to cancer to Celiac's. We are due for another blood test in three months, after starting the iron supplements and will go from there.

[sandandsea]

They said it was standard at the one year appt. and because of the issue found it’s been ongoing at every check up for ds1 (even after all the extra tests and specialists). For Ds2 they aren’t making us do additional blood work yet because of ds1s history.

[k3am]

Jan 31, 2018 13:59:26 GMT -5 sandandsea said:

They said it was standard at the one year appt. and because of the issue found it’s been ongoing at every check up for ds1 (even after all the extra tests and specialists). For Ds2 they aren’t making us do additional blood work yet because of ds1s history.

They definitely didn’t ever finger prick DD.

They told us it was standard with DS, but he was sick (he’s never really had a well visit that he was well for), so they skipped it.

[vasc]

I think they also check lead levels during the same fingerprick.

[mellym]

Lead and anemia check are standard here at the one year check up. We opted out for DD2. Well, I just never went to the lab and forgot about that until now. Doctor never asked about it again.