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Transitioning to milk - I have questions
So little dude is a year old now, and his pedi recommends switching him from formula to whole milk. I am horribly lactose intolerant and we drink nothing but soy milk in this household, so I'm clueless about milk. Since his formula is milk-based, and he eats cheese like it's going out of style, I'm assuming he didn't get dealt the lactose intolerance card. I definitely want to be sure he gets milk that's organic, no hormones, etc. Have you ladies found any brand to superior to another? Any I should avoid? Dis mixing milk/formula make the transition easier for your little one?
Also, L fusses for a bottle about every 3 hours during the day. This kid can EAT! I feed him 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, and he still wants a bottle regularly. I don't know if it's because he's actually hungry, or he's just conditioned. However, the doc said we should only be giving him about 24 oz. of milk a day, so somehow I'm going to have to figure out how to cut back his consumption. This might be a stupid question, but will the milk fill him up more than the formula since it's likely higher in fat? I'm so clueless about how to approach this situation!
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Re: Transitioning to milk - I have questions
A side question (hopefully not hijacking your post), but I've always wondered this... if the recommendation is to BF babies up to 2 years, why can't you FF the same timeframe? FF was made for babies (vs. cow's milk, which was made for baby cows), so shouldn't it still be fine for the second year? Did the Pedi say why?
We'll be looking at introducing cow's milk sometime next year too, so also interested in the replies to your question.
ETA: hopefully NOT hijacking!
I'm going to make an AWESOME big brother.
argh the internet ate my post.
Cooper doesn't like milk. Spits it out. Will only drink a little bit if he thinks he's stealing Ben's milk. So you never know, he might regulate on his own. But if he loves it and wants to drink too much, then only offer milk with meals and give him snacks with water every three hours in between. Or only do milk with snacks and water with meals.
And as for FF'ing to 2 years old... I dont' think there's a problem with FF'ing later, but at $25 a can, it's an easy choice IMO.
And they don't *need* formula or breastmilk for the nutrition if they're eating a good variety of solid foods. I think they recommend (and not all peds would even bother to recommend that) longer with BF'ing because of the antibodies and that type of protection, not because of the nutrition part.
I have nothing to offer on specific brands but we recently made the switch to milk. We mixed 50/50 when we reached our last can of formula and then moved exclusively to milk. Hayden was also used to getting a bottle regularly and in the past couple of weeks I've been trying to offer her solids when she gets fussy or a sippy cup with milk rather than a bottle. She always drinks less from a sippy cup (and likes to spit it out which is crazy annoying...). At first she seemed irritable about it but she seems to be getting used to it.
Zista - I'm not sure about the answer others would give you, but when my girls reached the 1 year mark I was ecstatic to be able to offer them milk instead of formula. Mainly it was because it is so much less expensive. I know formula makers offer special versions of formulas for older children, but I've just tried to give a wide variety of solid foods instead.
Jen - Mom to Jillian (10/2008) and Hayden (4/2010)
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From what I understand, BM evolves to suit your babies needs as it grows. Formula stays the same (obviously...). So as a baby is BF'd later in life, the nutrients and fat content change to what the child needs, but formula would be providing unnecesscary extras that the kid probably doesnt need and can get with regular food.
I'm going to make an AWESOME big brother.
yep. And I'm actually fine with milk that's antibiotic and hormone free really... I still get organic for the kids, but for me, I'm cheap sometimes. Trader Joes has good prices on milk too.
All milk should be hormone free per dairy standards [well, the main hormone that was blamed for early puberty]. I still buy organic as it is antibiotic and all hormone free. Like pp said, certified organic is certified organic. Store brands are often bottled at the same places as name brands, just labled differently. I like Western Family whole milk.
As far as amounts, K really doesn't seem to want milk as much as she did formula, so I haven't worried about her drinking too much. We still do formula first thing in the morning and last thing at night, because it's easy [and I have one last can to burn up!]. I tried mixing it but she really didn't care either way, so I just give her straight milk now.
Some kids can go cold turkey, I went about 25/75 milk/formula, 50/50, then 75/25, then 100%. Have you been giving him his formula in sippy cups at all? That helped to wean Laurel off of needing the bottle. When she was a little over a year we only gave a bottle at night, and then we switched all to sippy cups around 14 months.
My favorite Organic brand, because a little piece of me is hippie dippie, is Organic Valley. Horizon doesn't have the best reviews for how they treat their cows.
This site reviews some different organic dairies:
https://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html
Huh, who knew? My hippy stripes are clearly fraudulent... for some reason I imagined all organic milk coming from cows blythfully munching in grassy fields. For some reason I'm giggling at the "five cow" rating, however.
I'm going to make an AWESOME big brother.