Growing Up Milk?

[varietyisthespiceoflife]

My DD is 2 and turning into a really fussy eater despite havig previously eaten loads of fruit and veg. She will now only eat cucumber and tomatoes! Despite sneaking it into foods she spends her meal times picking out the 'lumps' grrrrrr. Am considering Growing Up Milk...any thoughts?

cows milk and a vitamin supplement would probably be cheaper!

total racket. wouldn't go anywhere near it myself. its powdered proteins, oil and various synthetic vitamins. nice. sorry, probably really unhelpful post but just IMHO.

Don't do it! It's a marketing ploy. What seona said if you're worried, but I bet she eats more than you think. The fussiness is yet another stage, so don't worry too much about it.

thanks everyone, you're right moog i guess its another stage!

Growing up milk is very, very sugary. I'd go for Seona's suggestion.

I'm resisting having a rant about growing up milk....

Didn't think growing up milk was so bad! I give DS growing up milk around 3 times a week, when I can be bothered making it. Much easier giving cow's milk IMO but buy growing up milk occasionally because it's my habit ( in asia we drink growing up/children formula until 7 years old).

I give vitamin supplements too, alternate days. I think with all these vitamin he's getting he's hardly ever ill and suffers little when he's unwell. DH and I on the other hand get ill all the time and get it very badly. Sometimes I feel like drinking his milk and taking his vitamins.

If DD has always eaten well, then it's definitely a phase. Happened to my DS a few times but they've not last more than 2 weeks at a time. Most days he eats anything and everything I give him. Hope everything's back normal very soon as I know how worrying it gets when DC isn't eating properly, even though I try really hard not to.

I have a personal bug bear with growing up/toddler milk. Firstly, it costs twice as much as cows milk, and is much, much sweeter.

Have you tasted it yourself? It tastes almost like a sweet vanilla milkshake, not good for their teeth or their diet.

Any 1 year old + with a full balanced diet will be getting all the nutrients they need and they should not need anything else. The dept of health's stance is that toddler milks are not necessary at any age.

I also have a problem with the advertising of follow on milks and toddler milks. As with follow on milks, growing up milks are a clever marketing ploy to get around the laws regarding infant formula as a vehicle to get their brand onto your tv and into your consciousness.

These companies advertise these milks as they know that young women and girls are seeing these adverts and from an early adulthood will subconsciously see that happy smiling babies have SMA, Cow & Gate etc etc and thats what happy babies have. Then when she starts a family that brand is already familiar to her, it normalises bottle feeding and makes it less likely to want to bfeed, which is something the NHS is spending a fortune on promoting.

Ok, rant over. I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinion but at least now I've had my rant.

Agree with everything that's been said. Cows milk, and vitims in you're concerned.

SirBoob

Lindt have you missed me? I don't actually expect you to have noticed, but have been thinking about you and several other posters since I moved. Hoping to get the net soon.

I had the same rant a few months ago, and felt much better for it. A good oldn Politics Of Breastfeeding refreshers course is good for the soul.

Marketing ploy. Childrennhave been growingup satisfactorily for years without special growing up milk!

Growing up milk is completely unnecessary imo.

And what Lindt said

they all get picky around 2yrs, it's normal IME. growing up milk won't help introduce your child to a healthy balanced diet IMHO, it is more likely to make them like sweet things!
agree with Lindt. It's all a con to make us buy more stuff. For a formula company to increase sales they need to a) get more babies to ff (and fewer to bf) and b) more children to have formula for longer.

I am [shock} at formula until 7 yrs in Asia!

The only groeing up milk that is needed is the stuff thst comes out of cows. And a resaonably balanced diet.

Don't stress about fussy eating,toddlers always seem to manage to get what they need somehow.

Agree, growing up milk is a marketing racket. All that "they would need to drink THIS MUCH cows milk to get their RDE of iron" then the tiny note at the bottom of the screen saying that milk is not a ggod source of iron anyway. GRRR, sharks...

Toddlers will get what they need from solids, they don't need baby milk.

I ff dds from birth and never bothered at all with any kind of follow on milk. At a year/11 monthish I just switched to full fat cows milk. DD1 turned very fussy re certain foods/vegs at about 2 but we just muddled along until she improved - eggs, bread, cheese, yogurt, pasta, fish etc. I never bothered with vit supplements either. Ps what is it about cucumber - my 2 would eat it until the cows came home, and I doubt I could manage a slice (horrible stuff)

Its a marketing con. Trying to make parents feel guilty if they arent feeding their child the newest fad!

Stay away from any prepared milk for a child over one. Obesity waiting to happen.

There's nothing shocking about having formula milk in asia till 7. When I was a child, we just didn't get fresh milk easily.. unless rich. Even then, easy to catch s+d as fresh milk goes off even if just accidentally left out for 5 minutes (it's 34 deg celcius normally).

I can't remember what my toddler milk tasted like.. probably sweet? But I definitely remember the 4-7 years old milk didn't taste that sweet but had added vitamins and minerals. I loved them till I was around 12, although cheaper than fresh milk, they were still expensive so we couldn't afford to have them everyday. Guess people in this country don't know how lucky they are! Hmm.. I don't really know what they sell now as I don't go back.

Don't know if I can completely agree that those growing up milk caused us obesity - My family and relatives are all pretty skinny people (size 6-10 people) all healthy and have great diet. My DH on the other hand, exclusively BF, was never on any formula (strange for his time) but is now hugely overweight, binges and eats rubbish all the time. I know it doesn't prove anything.. and I would still love to be able to exclusively BF my next baby. :)

Anon from the sound of it, the situation for you having toddler milk when you were a kid is very different from toddlers today in the UK so isn't really a fair comparison (the relative price to cows milk demonstrates this well).

If I felt I was in a situation where I couldn't give a toddler cows milk in confidence that it was safe I would, of course, give a formula/toddler/UHT milk instead.

That's really not why they are sold here in the UK though, its a rare day in the UK that milk will go off if you leave it out for 5 minutes!

I would put money on the "growing up milks" having some form of sugar in them. I did a quick google and coudn't find a list of ingredients easily - which fuels my suspicion. I did find a lot of pseudo scientific rubbish about probiotics and lipids, though. Boycott. Boycott. Boycott.

agreed.

Anon, you could just as easily use normal powdered milk. Doesn't have to be a special toddler milk stuffed full of sugar.

The issue you had is more a problem of keeping fresh foods fresh. Still no need for special "growing up milks".

I wouldn't worry too much. The only veg my dd eats is cucumber. She gets it with every meal! When I think I can get away with it I grate carrot & courgette into meals & we have a tomato sauce with pasta made from passata, courgette and whatever veg I can find. We don't call it tomato sauce (because god forbid she knowingly eat any veg) we just call it 'pasta sauce'! She is 3.

Problems getting cow's milk fresh were my parents.. not mine. :) Really grateful that they got us growing up milk with added vitamins and minerals, they were just doing what they thought was best for us. As said, they really weren't like sweet or anything. Just tasted like normal powdered milk.

I get growing up milk out of habit and convenience(when we run out of fresh milk as I'm not very organised) but probably will stop now due to "MN pressure". :) I prefer giving DS cow's milk and vitamins anyway. I agree growing up milk is generally unnecessary and expensive(even then I always buy them when they're on good offers so not overly expensive).

I do however completey disagree that growing up milk causes obesity. No one I know from where I grew up have become obese due to growing up milk, which most of us had. I believe the general british diet of potatoes, bread, lasagne, cheese, burgers and pizza, takeaways are much more likely to cause obesity as opposed to eating the "boiled rice with steamed/roasted fish/chicken and vegetables" diet I grew up eating... yum.. and don't get me started on the CHIPS.. makes me cross when DH and DS ask for chips all the time!

"they would need to drink THIS MUCH cows milk to get their RDE of iron" then the tiny note at the bottom of the screen saying that milk is not a ggod source of iron anyway. GRRR, sharks..."

This ad has been banned by the ASA - since when they've not been forced to put out a retraction, and the odd advert has slipped through.

I didn't realise that organiccarrot - glad to hear it.

Though I am sure I have seen that ad fairly recently.

Unfortunately, the damage may already have been done.