As your toddler gets older, he or she might stop requesting for milk. And that’s fine because children can get calcium and other nutrients from the food they eat. However, if you haven’t been keeping an eye on how much calcium your kid is consuming, it’s not too late to start now. To increase calcium intake for kids, you can begin by looking at the foods that your kid enjoys.
If nothing much points towards calcium, then start working on adding it into their diets. Calcium is particularly important. That’s because when kids get enough calcium, they can start out their adult lives with the strongest bones possible. An adequate amount of calcium will also protect them against bone loss later in life.
According to the Ministry of Health in Singapore, these are the recommended amount of calcium we need:
Age Groups | RDA for Calcium |
---|---|
Infants (0 – 6 months, breast-fed) | 300mg |
Infants (0 – 6 months, formula-fed) | 400mg |
Infants (7 – less than 12 months) | 400mg |
Children (1 – 3 years) | 500mg |
Children (4 – 6 years) | 600mg |
Children (7 – 9 years) | 700mg |
Adolescents (10 – 18 years) | 1,000mg |
Adults (19 – 50 years) | 800mg |
Adults (51 years and above) | 1,000mg |
Breastfeeding / pregnant | 1,000mg |
If your child doesn’t fancy milk very much, here are different ways, including milk alternatives, to increase calcium intake for your kids every day.
It’s a no brainer – serve milk cold or warm with cereal at breakfast or after school as a snack. Make it enticing, make it fun! Go for cereals like the General Mills Lucky Charms With Magical Unicorns Marshmallows that not only provide your kid with 10 per cent of the daily requirement of calcium, there’s also a small amount of coloured cereal in different shapes to keep kids engaged during mealtimes.
You don’t always have to drink milk or eat cheese and yoghurt for calcium. There are plenty of dairy-free options that still allow you to get your daily dose of calcium without touching lactose like salmon, sardines, tofu, eggs, prawns, almonds and leafy vegetables.
Did your kid declare milk as a boring drink? Before you hand over another cup of sugar-loaded chocolate milk, think about other ways to incorporate calcium foods in your child’s meals and snacks. For one, you can start being fancy about your yoghurt toppings. Get the kids involved! They love choosing what they eat, and obviously all the choices represented for them are rich in calcium, so it’s a win-win situation.
If your kid is lactose-intolerant, you can check out milk alternatives like soy milk, almond milk. oat milk, coconut milk and rice milk. While the taste of these different calcium sources might take some getting used to, these offer the much-needed calcium for strong bones and teeth. These milk alternatives have become quite the norm and you can easily find them at major supermarkets in the stores as well as online.
Compared to cow’s milk, goat’s milk contains more bioactives, such as epidermal growth factor (EGF), polyamine and free amino acids. The level of natural nutrients in goat’s milk – such as nucleotides, taurine and glutamic acid – is also three times higher than in cow’s milk. These nutrients work to boost protection from within while building a solid foundation for mental and physical growth.
The Karihome Goat Milk Growing-Up Formula contains readily digestible proteins, fatty acids and other essential nutrients that are crucial for healthy development. At $53.40 (900 g).
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This was published on April 27, 2017, and updated on September 22, 2020.