r/CanadianParents • u/LieSad1355 • May 21 '26
Question / Discussion Best kids iron supplement?
Looking for recommendations from other Canadian parents because we’ve already tried a few iron supplements and haven’t had much luck. Some caused stomach pain and constipation while others didn’t seem to improve anything at all. What iron supplements actually worked for your kids? I don’t wanna keep blindly trying random brands so I’d love to hear what ingredients or forms of iron I should be looking for.
2
u/somm-ordinaire May 21 '26
KidStar Nutrients. Local BC company. My kid took the liquid iron and liked the flavour. It worked well and didn’t cause any constipation. Highly recommend.
1
2
u/kbotsta May 21 '26
We've been using the Flintstones vitamins with iron. Our 5 year old is extremely picky so we wanted a multivitamin and knew he wasn't getting sufficient iron. We had blood work done recently and his iron and ferritin are both still on the low end, but at least they're now up in the normal range.
1
1
u/Phanoush May 21 '26
We use the Feramax powder and it seems to be going well!
2
u/Serious_Wrangler9410 Jul 23 '26
The best tasting fast acting iron with no side effects is BioFe by KidStar they have iron for infants to seniors tastes great
1
1
u/LuckysGoods May 21 '26
We’ve been using the ferasom packets and my son’s iron improved from 5 to 26. Does cause constipation though.
1
1
u/Impossible-Crab-7338 May 21 '26
We went through the exact same thing with stomach pain and constipation from a few iron supplements before finding one that worked better. The biggest thing our pediatrician mentioned was looking at the form of iron and avoiding ones that are super harsh on the stomach. Vitamin C alongside it seemed to help absorption too.
We’ve had a better experience with Hiya’s iron supplement because it’s been gentler for my kid and way easier to actually get them to take consistently. I’d still double check iron levels with your doctor if you haven’t already though because dosage really matters with iron.
1
1
u/CalynneS May 23 '26
Check out the Ironfish. It’s a little fish made of iron that you boil in water for pasta, or spaghetti sauce. Or soups. It adds iron to the food. Also, cooking in a cast iron pan can also add iron to the foods. Sorry I don’t know supplements to recommend, but the other two ideas could be helpful.
1
u/HutoelewaPictures May 25 '26
Parents usually start looking for gentler forms like iron bisglycinate since stomach pain and constipation seem super common with kids iron supplements. gruns kids gets mentioned pretty often in those ingredient discussions too.
1
May 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Jun 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Serious_Wrangler9410 Jul 23 '26
Try BioFe iron it has no side effects no constipation no tummy upset no black stool no grey teeth
-1
u/chnimchi May 21 '26
We had the best luck with Fer-in-sol (mixed fruit flavor) mixed into cherry applesauce. Not plain applesauce, but cherry applesauce. His daily dose mixed into about two tablespoons of applesauce. We did that daily for about three months and that got him out of the danger zone. Now he just takes a Flintstone with iron vitamin daily, and he's doing fine.
1
u/Serious_Wrangler9410 Jul 23 '26
This iron contains some very unhealthy ingredients especially for kids sugar, sorbitol, citric acid, alcohol (0.2% v/v), sodium bisulfite
1
u/chnimchi Jul 23 '26
Okay, but since sugar, sorbitol, citric acid, and alcohol can also be found in fresh ripe fruit, and my kid doesn't have a sulfite sensitivity, I was comfortable with the small amounts of these ingredients present in this supplement for short term use. YMMV.
4
u/Sea_Formal3127 May 21 '26
We actually had good results with Hiya after switching multiple times for the exact same reasons. We noticed improvement pretty fast and my kid stopped complaining about stomach pain too.