Multivitamins for toddlers – 6 reviewed

Multivitamins for toddlers

This post discusses the need for multivitamins for toddlers and reviews 6 popular multivitamins that are suitable for older babies and toddlers.

My 2 year old son Jonah and I have tested 6 popular multivitamins for toddlers over a period of several months. At the end of the post, you can find our verdict on the 6 brands we tried, and learn which is our favourite amongst the picks.

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I really hope you find this post helpful in selecting a multivitamin for your toddler!

Why give multivitamins to toddlers?

NHS guidelines state that babies and children from 6 months to 5 years require A, C, and D supplementation. If your toddler is drinking more than 500ml of formula milk a day, then supplementation isn’t necessary. If you’re breastfeeding, you need to supplement from birth even if you’re supplementing yourself.

Even if your toddler is a “good eater” you might want to consider supplementation, especially with vitamin D. According to NHS, it’s hard for children to get the vitamin D they need from food alone. The lack of light in the UK during autumn and winter means your toddler will be getting even less vitamin D during the darker months. A daily supplement of 10µg vitamin D is recommended for children aged 1 to 4 years.

If you’re not already, autumn is the perfect time to add a supplement to your toddler’s diet!

Multivitamins for toddlers – 6 reviewed

If you look along the chemist or supermarket shelves, you’ll find quite a selection of multivitamins for toddlers. But which are the best brands to choose? Which contain the most comprehensive range of vitamins? Do any contain unhealthy ingredients like sweeteners and unhealthy fillers?

Once I started selecting and buying a few, I noticed differences in the way the multivitamins are administered, the way they taste, and how much my son seems to prefer one brand over another.

We tested:

  • Abidec Multivitamin Drops
  • BioCare Baby A, C, D Plus Drops
  • Haliborange Baby & Toddler Multivitamins
  • Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops
  • Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops
  • Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid

Let’s take a look at the individual products.

Abidec Multivitamin Drops

Abidec is a popular choice with many parents. It’s widely available from Boots and supermarkets.

Abidec Multivitamin Drops - great for toddlers

Let’s review Abidec Multivitamin Drops:

  • Contains 7 vitamins – A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C, D2.
  • Ages 6 months to 5 years.
  • Pack size 25ml.
  • Dosage 0.6ml daily.
  • Use within 4 weeks – we didn’t use the entire pack.
  • Doesn’t need to be refrigerated.
  • Administer on a syringe which is shot to the back of the tongue, avoiding the teeth.
  • Sweetened with sucrose.
  • Price £4.49.

Verdict

Jonah seems to enjoy taking orange flavoured Abidec, as you can see from the pictures.

I like this delivery method as it ensures the full dose is given. The syringe is supposed to shoot the syrup past the teeth, but in our experience some always comes forward and ends up on the bib, so it must be getting on his teeth.

The price is good for how long the pack lasts. About a third of the bottle was left over when the pack expired. If you only have one child, there’s quite a lot going to waste. If you have two children, nothing would go to waste.

Abidec Multivitamin Drops

Buy Now – £4.49 at Amazon


BioCare Baby A, C, D Plus Drops

I hadn’t heard of BioCare until I searched online for multivitamin drops. They pitch themselves as “Professional Supplement Specialists”.

BioCare A, C, D Plus Drops

Let’s review BioCare Baby A, C, D Drops:

  • Contains 9 vitamins and minerals – A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, D, zinc.
  • Ages 1 month to 5 years.
  • Pack size 15ml.
  • Dosage 8 drops daily.
  • Pack lasted us about 4 weeks.
  • Needs to be refrigerated.
  • Administer drops on the tongue, or in liquid.
  • Sweetened with fructose.
  • Price £11.55.

Verdict

It’s hard to get Jonah to take drops on his tongue. We add it to liquid but he never drinks it all, so we know he’s not getting the full dose. I don’t like adding it to his water since it sweetens it and makes it more like juice. He definitely notices his drink is different. And at that price we don’t want to waste a drop! BioCare drops are extremely expensive, but they do contain zinc which is a good added extra.

Towards the end of the pack, there’s still some left but it’s very hard to get out. We probably ended up throwing out a few days worth of vitamins, which isn’t good at that price.

The good thing about BioCare drops is that there’s a lot less sugar being given because the drops are more concentrated.

BioCare Baby A, C, D Plus Drops

Buy Now – £11.55 at Amazon


Haliborange Baby & Toddler Multivitamins

Haliborange is a well known brand that can be picked up from Boots and supermarkets.

Haliborange Baby and Toddler Multivitamins

Let’s review Haliborange Baby & Toddler Multivitamins:

  • Contains 9 vitamins – A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, D, E.
  • Ages 1 month to 5 years.
  • Pack size 250ml.
  • Dosage 5ml daily.
  • The pack must be used within 8 weeks, and we used it all in exactly 8 weeks.
  • Needs to be refrigerated.
  • Administer with a spoon (not provided).
  • Sweetened with glycerol, which doesn’t feed the oral bacteria that other sugars do.
  • Price £4.22.

Verdict

We all really like Haliborange. Jonah seems to love the taste, and eagerly takes his dose each day. I really like how all the pack is used with Haliborange – none goes to waste, which is great.

The only downside is that the bottle does get very sticky after 8 weeks! A quick rinse under the tap puts it right.

Haliborange Baby & Toddler Multivitamins

Buy Now – £4.13 at Pharmacy2U


Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops

These multivitamins for toddlers are available free to children aged from six months to four years who receive Healthy Start vouchers – do you qualify?

Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops - a free choice for our toddler

Let’s review Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops:

  • Contains 3 vitamins – A, C, D.
  • Ages 1 month to 5 years.
  • Pack size 10ml.
  • Dosage 5 drops daily.
  • We don’t know how long the pack lasts as we decided not to use these vitamins.
  • Doesn’t need to be refrigerated.
  • Administer on a spoon before adding to liquid or food.
  • Sweetened with glycerol, which doesn’t feed the oral bacteria that other sugars do.
  • Free under certain circumstances.

Verdict

We never used these drops as they contain an emulsifying ingredient I’m not comfortable feeding to Jonah on a daily basis – Polysorbate-80. It’s a shame, as it’s free, and it’s banana flavoured, which Jonah would’ve loved. NHS declined to respond as to why it’s included in their vitamins.

Healthy Start Children’s Vitamin Drops

Learn More at NHS


Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops

Find this one in the health food shops or on Amazon.

Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops

Let’s review Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops:

  • Contains 9 vitamins – A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D.
  • Ages 3 months to 5 years.
  • Pack size 50ml.
  • Dosage 1ml daily.
  • Once opened use within 4 months. Our pack lasted just over 9 weeks.
  • Doesn’t need to be refrigerated, but we put it in the fridge anyway.
  • Administer with a dropper, can be dropped on tongue or added to liquid.
  • Sweetened with glycerine. No evidence that glycerine harms the teeth, although some believe it prevents teeth from remineralising.
  • Price: £5.95.

Verdict

At first, we tried to give these drops to Jonah on a spoon. He thought he was getting Haliborange, so was rather disappointed! As you can see, Jonah doesn’t like the taste of Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops. To make them go down easier, we settled on mixing the dose into a couple of tablespoons of plain yogurt.

Natures Aid Multivitamin Drops

Buy Now – £5.81 at Amazon


Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid

From the makers of Pregnacare comes this popular and widely available choice.

Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid

Let’s review Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid:

  • Contains 14 vitamins and minerals – A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12, C, D, E, iron, copper, zinc.
  • Ages 6 months to 4 years.
  • Pack size 150ml.
  • Dosage 5ml daily.
  • Lasts 8 to 10 weeks.
  • Needs to be refrigerated.
  • Administer by mixing into liquid, or spooning into the mouth with the dosing spoon provided.
  • Sweetened with raw cane sugar.
  • Price: £5.30.

Verdict

Orange flavoured Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid is easy to dose on the spoon – Jonah likes it. It contains quite a nutritional punch compared with the others, but many of these nutrients are not recommended to be supplemented, so are they really necessary?

Wellbaby has Swiss alpine malt, which contains useful amino acids and various other nutrients. It contains copper, iron, and zinc, which the others do not.

Wellbaby Multi-Vitamin Liquid

Buy Now – £5.35 at Amazon


Multivitamins for toddlers comparison

  A B1 B2 B3 B5 B6 B9 B12 C D E Iron Copper Zinc Malt
Abidec
BioCare
Haliborange
Healthy Start
Natures Aid
Wellbaby

Which multivitamins for toddlers are the best?

I will let you decide this for yourself based on the facts in this post, but here are my thoughts.

BioCare is the most expensive, but is also one of the most comprehensive multivitamins for toddlers. It also seems to be lowest in sugar for the dose given. However, BioCare is just too expensive for me to afford to buy regularly and I can’t see any real reason not to choose Wellbaby, Abidec, or Haliborange instead.

The cheapest is NHS Healthy Start, but since it’s not an option for us, Haliborange is the cheapest while still offering a nice range of nutrients.

Of all the toddler multivitamins, the most comprehensive is Wellbaby. It goes beyond what is recommended by NHS, and it is very well priced. Wellbaby is the only toddler multivitamin to contain iron, which is great if you’re worried your toddler might be low on iron. On the other hand, if you don’t want to supplement iron, you could go for Abidec or Haliborange instead.

The simplest is Healthy Start, which contains just the core recommended vitamins.

As for Natures Aid, Jonah wasn’t too keen on the taste and it’s not convenient to always give Jonah yogurt.

My personal favourite, and the one I feel Jonah likes the most is Wellbaby. I’d choose Abidec and Haliborange in joint second.

What do you think to supplementing your toddler with multivitamins? Do you have a favourite brand of multivitamins for toddlers? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time!

Helen
Does your toddler need a multivitamin supplement? Learn about the NHS recommendations, plus find the right multivitamin for your toddler. Six toddler multivitamin brands reviewed.

12 Replies to “Multivitamins for toddlers – 6 reviewed”

  1. Wow-I’m not sure there were this many options when my kids were this age. This will be so helpful to moms with young ones.

    1. Yes! And I haven’t scratched the surface with all the options here, I just went for the healthiest! Thanks so much.

  2. Thank you for sharing this! I’ve been looking into vitamins for MacKenlee!

    1. Oh that’s great timing! 🙂

  3. Stephanie @FitFoundMe says: Reply

    I didn’t realize babies needed the extra vitamins! Really good info that I will pass on to my children who now have young babies and toddlers! Thank you!

    1. Thanks for passing it on, I didn’t know until my son was a little bit older.

  4. Really good info! I will always remember Flintstone vitamins from my childhood

    1. Haha, they sound like a lot of fun and I bet it helped you to manage them!

  5. Such a thorough post! Such great info for new moms!

  6. Hi. i was stuck where to file a complaint against Helathy Start vitamin drops. Then bumped into your article!
    They have 4 toxic ingredients listed in the ingredients;
    Polysorbate 80 – Cholecalciferol – Propylene Glycol – and Diacetine.
    These are very harmful causing our kids serious health risks, and this needs to be reported. My son has been taking these for over a year and this made me very angry, mainly with myself for not checking and not being informed before giving it to him. What can we do about this?
    ngdangsta@hotmail.com

    Thank you…

    1. Hi Angie, thanks for your comment. I really don’t know enough about these chemicals to make an educated comment. I would say try not to worry too much. Chemicals are tested for safety and approved by governing bodies at the studied dose. It’s like mercury in fish. It is lethal at a high dose, but not at the dose we consume. I think if you wrote to Healthy Start they could put your mind at rest. Best wishes to you and your son.

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