Vitamin d3 dose for two year old boy

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

I recently started giving my two year old son 800 IU/day of vitamin d3. Within a week he started acting more hyper and agitated. He also seems to be crying and fussing more.

The only upside I have noticed is that he sleeps deep and straight through the night and naps two hours/day as well.

800 IU/day is the recommended dose for adults so surely a baby does not need the same amount.

what dose do you typically recommend for a two hear old boy?

2

We do not typically recommend vitamin D supplementation for children.

If you think there may be a specific medical reason why he needs supplementation, I would ask his pediatrician.

3

We live in a cold climate six months out of the year where we get little to no sun exposure.

His diet is mostly whole organic foods. Nothing processed. So no appreciable amounts of vitamin d are obtained through diet

In light of this do you still not recommend supplementation?

4

We would still not recommend supplementation for individuals without a medical indication to do so.

People can obtain Vitamin D in the diet from:

  1. Dairy products
  2. Fatty fish like trout, salmon, tuna, mackerel - vitamin D3 (70-80% DV per serving)
  3. Mushrooms, mushroom powder -vitamin D2 (46% DV per serving)
  4. Eggs (6% daily value) per egg
  5. Red meat, etc. If you want, check out our podcast on Vitamin D here.