DS and dairy

[waitingforsomething]

DS is coming 16 months. He's healthy and happy to the eye, sleeps well and eats well wihth good quantities but we have a bugbear in that he won't touch dairy products. He absolutely won't drink cows milk - never has and never really liked formula either. He will not eat cheese as a snack or in a sandwich. He will not eat yoghurt apart from one brand of heavily sweetened strawberry which he will sometimes have a few spoons of.
He eats his cereal dry and will not eat it with even a splash of milk. He will eat pasta bakes or pies made with a white sauce or a mild cheese sauce but we cannot eat these every day.
DD always loved dairy so never had a problem, she would drink milk and eat cheese most days.

I'm a little worried about his intake of healthy fats and calcium - can anyone recommend ways that they have sneaked dairy into their children, or other kinds of calcium/dairy laden products that I'm missing.

His weight gain is fine.

Here's the NHS list of good sources of calcium:

Good sources of calcium include:
• milk, cheese and other dairy foods
• green leafy vegetables – such as broccoli, cabbage and okra, but not spinach
• soya beans
• tofu
• soya drinks with added calcium
• nuts
• bread and anything made with fortified flour
• fish where you eat the bones – such as sardines and pilchards

Will he eat any of those? Also, what about other types of milk, maybe a fortified oat milk? You can use that to make porridge if he'll eat it. What about pancakes for breakfast?

Oh thank you I hadn't come across this. He will eat tofu and he loves salmon so I expect he'd eat tinned salmon where you eat the bones. I'll try.

I've tried a lot of different milks and he just isn't keen - he will have a little rice milk on cereal but this isn't very nutritionally useful I dn't think. Porridge he won't but pancakes he might - I'll try.

What about the fat thing? as I know children are recommended to have full fat milk until two because it's good for their brain development etc but here is a child who will not drink any, not even semi-skimmed. He literally gags on it :-(

If your DS won't have milk, he can get fat from plenty of other sources and tbh in greater quantities than he'd get from even full fat milk. Oily fish like salmon is a great source for a start :) Does your DS also like avocado, hummus or nut butters? I'd imagine you'll be using butter/margarine/oil in cooking, so he'll be getting fat from there too. Eggs and even lean meat contain a certain amount of fat too. When you look at his diet as a whole there are probably lots of sources of fat in there for essential fatty acids and fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E and K).

Rice milk isn't suitable for under 5s due to arsenic levels so I would try to use a different milk for cereal

Thanks. He has dry cereal 6 days out 7 so not particularly concerned.

Thank you baking - he loves salmon and also avocado and yes we use butter and oil for cooking. Eggs are a big hit so I will try to stop worrying as I expect he's getting what he needs from a reasonably varied diet.

Sesame seeds have extremely high levels of calcium. Just make sure they are crushed as otherwise they tend to just go straight through and not get digested. They can be added to pretty much everything.