Health visitors keep cancelling appointments, milk advice for 1 year old please?

[livingasigo]

Hello!

My daughter is 1 in early December. I haven't seen a health visitor since February. I need a bit of advice regarding milk?

heath visitor back story We moved house, changed all our details properly at the doctors and let the children's centre in the town know our details had changed too.

I heard nothing from the health visitors when it was time for her 10 month check up so I contacted them and they apologised and said they had lost a number of patients details and ours was one of them, so I booked an appointment for the check there and then, once they had re entered my details.
They cancelled that appointment by letter the day before and now keep cancelling every appointment I've made since.

anyway my daughter is about to turn 1, she has 3 8oz bottles a day (formula) I started giving her cows milk in porridge and with cereals and she has baby yogurts but when do I start switching to cows milk instead of formula?

I'm sorry if it's a silly question, I can't get many straight answers online and it would be useful to hear other experiences with this, I'm a bit nervous.

[Justbookedasummmerholiday]

My ds 1 had follow on formula at breakfast and supper and cow's milk the rest until he was 2 then used the next stage follow on milk. The dc are vegetarian and thought he needed the extra nutrients.

[comeagainforbigfudge]

We started just before turning one. And basically over a couple of weeks introduced milk via bottles.

So for example made a 6oz bottle with 2oz milk. Then gradually decreased formula and increased the milk over the next week or so.

It helped our wee one started becoming very disinterested in her formula and was only having a bottle morning/night.

[LoveProsecco]

I moved my DC from formula to cow’s milk as he was one. He had been getting cows milk in cereal since he was weaned and liked cheese and yogurt so didn’t show any intolerance towards cow milk. I know of some children who didn’t like the fast initially so l they have mixed cows milk and formula together to get them used to it. My DS was great on cows milk straight away and it’s lovely stopping having to sterilise things!

That’s how my HV advised me to do it

[Beansprout30]

I think I was too quick to switch to cows milk and one night dd was awake in agony with a gassy belly, we then went back to the start and mixed it with formula very gradually to get her use she to it. Now she has two cups of cows milk a day and a 5 oz bottle of formula at bed time. She's not a great eater so I'm going to stick with the formula (and vitamins) for a while longer

[Beansprout30]

Forgot to say she's now 16 months

[glow1984]

DS is 16 months, but we only recently took him off formula. He's been formula-free for a month now!

I wouldn't say there is a massive rush.

We did the process gradually, replacing 1 oz of formula with cows milk every few days until he was completely onto it.

[Ragusa]

If there are no other health or dietary issues you can go on to cows milk in one fell swoop. There is no actual health reason for mixing it in. Formula is cows milk anyway, albeit with some extra vitamins.

Follow on milk is totally unnecessary and even if extra vits are needed you can use Abidec or similar. It's a marketing invention to allow brand promotion.

[BikeRunSki]

We just changed from formula to full fat dairy milk outright the day after DS was 1. We finished the tub, and I was too mean to buy any more! Straight swap for dd too, about s week before she was 1. Neither of them had a problem with this.

[Changerofname987654321]

We moved DD onto soya milk (calcium enriched) at 11 1/2 months on the advice of her dietitian. At 12 months they don’t need formula anymore.

If your baby is having less than 17oz a day then you need to give vitamins.

[mindutopia]

Around 12 months. We did it gradually over about a month and a half (small amounts of milk to drink from about 10.5 months). I switched out an extra bottle a day each week between 11-12 months and then by 12 months, all 4 bottles were cow's milk. I would definitely do it gradually as it can cause some tummy upset just because it's so new. We had about 2 weeks of loose stools and nappy rash, but she adjusted fine after that.

[livingasigo]

Thanks everyone, I started the switch last night, 6 oz formula to 2 oz cows milk, she took it fine and slept through.

I think I'll gradually reduce the formula over the next 6 months until we stop in may/june time.

I'm such a worry wart when it comes to these things!