Cow's milk...

[Twiglett]

Saw a thread on this and now can't find it and I wasnted to read it as almost 9 month DD won't take formula (bf's at night only) and I was wondering if I could give her cow's milk during the day?

its not that I'll be replacing formula / breast feeds with cows milk, its just that she has no milk at all during the day (but lots of calcium foods)

can anyone answer or find me the thread in question p.p.p.please?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I think they're not supposed to have cow's milk as a beverage until a year. I'm sure doing it from 11.5 months is ok, but 9 months is probably pushing it (perhaps because of salt? not sure.). I'm sure she gets enough milk with bf and calcium foods, anyway - I've heard of babies younger than that being fine with two feeds a day, morning and night.

[Twiglett]

I know .. that's what I thought the not till a year old .. but I briefly had a look at the other thread and it seemed the issue was not to replace milk formula / breast feeds because of iron content? but as DD isn't having drink feeds during the day I wasn't sure

never heard the salt content thing TBH .

[NotQuiteCockney]

A brief websearch leads me to believe you're right, it's not salt, it's iron.

But it's not just that formula has more iron, but also that apparently regular cow's milk makes some kids' guts bleed.

Here's a reasonable article. So I'd say no ...

[Twiglett]

Thanks NQC ..much appreciated .. I shall just keep going on the calcium rich foods then

[NotQuiteCockney]

I think they can get an incredible amount of breastmilk very efficiently by this age. I remember DS1 only got interested in cow's milk in any quantity after I weaned him ... but from 1 year or so until 18 months, he only fed once a day!

And when he got interested in cow's milk, he would drink a pint per day - will still sometimes have more than that, but then he eats fewer solids, which isn't great at 3! So I wonder how much breastmilk he was getting in that one feed?

[Yorkiegirl]

Message withdrawn

[bathmummy]

My DD1 hated milk/formula from an early age and would only drink water. We made up for this with plenty of dairy rich food, added milk/cheese sauces/yoghurt etc. into as many recipes as possible and she has never seemed to suffer - healthy girl with loads of energy and rarely ill.