transitioning to whole milk

so1966

did you gradually get your LO off of formula or go cold turkey and straight into whole milk?.  our pediatrician said parents can go either way. not much direction there...

also, my LO is used to drinking his milk room temp, so i guess i'll be warming up the milk a bit.

also, i'm thinking of using my little cooler and having milk with me, on occassion.

lately, my LO is just drinking just water in his sippy cup, so i guess i'll start trying the milk now. i think the transition into sippy cup will be a bit challenging:)

  

 

krissyh21

Dillon was really easy to transition. I just woke up and gave him milk in his sippy - and he drank it all. No looking back. I never warmed it, but he didn't seem to mind it cold. I would try it cold first and then if there is issues, you can warm it - but you really don't want to be warming milk well into his teen years, so try to break the habit. When the weather is warmer - a cold glass of milk may be quite refreshing to your LO.

As far as carrying milk in a cooler - kids do not need to rely on milk, water is better for throughout the day to keep up with hydration. D gets 3 cups of milk a day. 1 when he wakes up, one near snack and one near bed time and if he misses a serving it really is not a big deal.  You should not serve over 24 ounces of milk in a day, milk fills them up and then they will eat less and get less nutrients than what a balanced diet could give them. HTH

Dragonfly1226

I EBF DS until he was a year old. When he was about 11.5 months I started mixing WCM with pumped BM and giving it to him in a bottle as I dropped nursing sessions. I increased the amount of WCM until I stopped adding BM all together. When my sessions were all dropped and he was exclusively on WCM I started giving it to him in a sippy cup. (He loves the sippy cup!) I stopped warming the milk when I gave it to him in a sippy cup too. Now he has a cup of milk when he wakes up in the morning, one at midmorning, one after his nap, and I still give him a bottle before bed. I put about 4 oz in a cup and 5 oz in his bedtime bottle so he gets about 17 oz a day. Like Krissy said, it's no big deal if he misses a serving of milk. Sometimes I bring a cup with me if we are out for the morning. Sometimes I give him a morning snack when he would normally have milk. It depends on our plans and how well he ate a breakfast. What's most important is the nutrition he gets from eating throughout the day. Even if your DS refuses milk for a while during the transition, it's okay. Especially if he has other dairy like cheese and yogurt during the day. GL!

JillRock96

We pretty much stopped formula and bottles at the same time (with the exception of the night time bottle), so I gradually added sippies of whole milk and took away bottles of formula (over the span of a week or two).  We kept the night time bottle, but switched over the whole milk with it.

ladychicago

I tried just going cold turkey switching from formula in bottles to wcm in sippies, and it just didn't work.  DD threw a royal fit.  So we did milk in bottles first until she got used to it, and then ditched the bottles cold turkey shortly after that.  It took 5 days or so for her milk intake to return to normal, though.   It was a rough 5 days but she finally figured it out!