Hi I'm new here, just thought I'd jump in, and add my .02 since my family is octo-lavo vegetarian.
We have one four year old son, and yes, he's octo-lavo as well. He was essentially vegan for his first two years (not including breastmilk), as he had reacted to both egg and cow's dairy early on so we held off on those. He's fine with eggs now and goat and sheep dairy products.(all our eggs and dairy come from a free-range family operated organic farms)
We don't FORCE our son to be vegetarian any more than an omnivorous family forces their children to eat meat!!! He eats what we eat, because well, that's what we cook!! If, when he's older, he chooses to eat meat, he can go right ahead. He's not cooking it in my kitchen though, I don't want the bacterial/contamination risk in my home thanks! Hopefully if he ever chooses that, he'll choose to do it in as responsible a manner as possible. Of course, he WILL most certainly learn where meat comes from, and we've already started to educate him in that area.
We do have to adjust his diet a little from ours by adding a little more efa's as children have a higher requirement for fats than do adults. We do this by just adding a little hemp or flax oil to his plate before serving, putting in an extra scoop of hemp protein powder in his smoothie, spreading the nut butter a little thicker on his sandwich...you get the picture.
Beacause I and my husband have beeen vegetarian for so long (about 21 yrs for me), eating healthily is second nature. Instead of eating by the 'four' food groups, we have 6: fruits and veggies, grains, proteins, fats, superfoods and living foods.
My extended family is primarily vegetarian as well. I ate some meat as a kid, but not very often, and learned how to balance meatless meals from day 1.
Since we don't seek any 'professional' nutritional counselling, we get bloodwork done annually for us, and twice a year for our son to see that we have enough iron, calcium, folate ect. available in our bodies. Last time we checked, we were all 'off the scale' so to speak, having more of these nutrients than the average omnivore has. We take no supplements, and our son just eats a simple multi each day.
As well, our son is also in the 95th growth percentile for height and weight, is above average in his intellectual abilities for his age, and has rarely been ill.
We're fortunate that for the most part we don't get any flack from anyone about it, its pretty accepted where we live, there are a LOT of vegetarians here (ontario) and several vegetarian restaurants, even vegan, organic and raw in our city.
Also, our ped is Indian, and in India, it is normal for people to eat a primarily vegetarian diet as many folks cannot afford meat very often, so he's really supportive and thinks that all his patients should be more or less veggie.
For anyone looking for excellent info on raising vegetarian babies, check out the book "Vegetarian Baby" by Sharon Yntema. Very very well written, with recipes recommended by the WHO. The bible for any vegetarian family
Corie Dora =^..^=