cows milk at 9 months?

[catwhiskers10]

DD is 9 months old and still breastfeeding with sips of juice from a cup at lunchtime.
She eats a good and varied diet and has had dairy products for a few months now with no problems at all and takes cows milk in cereal, sauces etc.
At the moment I express about 3-4oz of milk so she can take it to her grandparents once a week. She is only away for 4 hours and her gran has told me half the time she doesnt even drink most of the milk.
Would it really do any harm to give her 4 oz of cows milk to take with her instead if she needed a drink?

I think you're supposed to wait til after 12 months before switching to drinking cow's milk, but others I'm sure will come along with more information.

You shouldn't replace BF or formula with cows milk because it doesn't contain enough nutrients in it to be a suitable substitute under the age of 1.
If she doesn't drink it, why bother with cow's milk at all? Can she just have water instead?

If you already giving her cows milk in cereal, sauces etc, I cannot see it will make much difference to have what sounds like a very small drink of it too.

She wont drink water and surely cows milk would have more nutrients than water anyway?
Also, I would only be substituting one drink a week so I don't imagine it would make all that much difference.
I just wanted to know if others had given cows milk as an occasional drink befor the age of 1?

I would give her some formula to take as cows milk as a drink is unsuitable as a drink before the age of 1. That is, if expressing is becoming to difficult, but it sounds as though you are managing, so why give it up?

i gave boiled cows milk from 8mo, just as an occasional drink, with BM as the main one - it isn't the whole of their diet. though i don't doubt the advice i was following then (3 years ago ish) may have changed.

here cows milk not main drink

i really don't see why, if you can give water as an occasional drink, not cows milk (except for allergic babies)

Because cows milk is more filling than water but doesn't have the calories, fat or nutrients that BM or F has so you are just filling them up with empty calories, EatingAngelPie.

Cow's milk isn't suitable as a main drink, but one cup once a week isn't a main drink, is it?

I wouldn't hesitate to do this myself.

If the OP is managing to express though, I don't see the why she feels the need to substitute with anything else, being only once a week? That 3-4ozs is doing far more good than anything else, particularly cows milk.

'empty calories' ?

and occasional drink - baby eats lots of stuff that isn't BM then!

Compared with BM and Formula cows milk is just empty calories at this age. It fills them up but doesn't provide enough nutrients or fat or calories.

What about giving a snack instead of milk? Yoghurt or cheese maybe?

I would do this no probs.

A cup of cows milk once a week isn't going to do any harm whatsoever.

In fact with DD2 I started giving her some cowsmilk with meals sometimes at this age. Sometimes gave her water. I knew she wasn't allergic as she was having it with cereal etc.

Still BF her until 18 months.

Go for it catswhiskers, reading your posts again, your logic is impeccable IMO

Once a week is absolutely fine at 9 months. Your logic is completely correct. By doing this you are not giving it as a main drink.

I am a GP and rarely use that fact in posts as don't like giving advice over the internet, but this is such a general question I'll risk it, being as it may give my post more weight.

What everyone else says. You are not giving it as a main drink but an occassional drink. No harm whatsoever.

I do this myself with my nine month old, and did with my older children.

Thanks for the more sensible replies.
As always on mumsnet some people cant see outside the box and do everything by the book.
sometimes makes me wonder how the human race survived before all the new advice came along!