Follow-on milk

[Prometheus]

I'm looking for some advice please. I stopped BF at 4 months and moved DS onto formula as I returned to work and couldn't express enough . He is now 6 months and the doctor said he needs to go onto follow on milk.

I'm not keen on this as he would only be allowed 3 bottles of follow on milk per day (he currently has 4 bottles of the 0-6 month milk). I have started weaning him but he only takes a few spoonfuls of puree a day so nowhere near enough to drop a feed.

Plus, after comparing the ingredients, I can see that follow on has more sugar. I don't want to encourage him to get a sweet tooth. However it does have twice the iron.

I can't ask doctor for advice as she is very traditional and is adamant that he needs follow on (6 months plus milk as it is called here - we're not in the UK but the brand is basically Aptamil). I've done some research online and saw that people say follow on milk is a con to avoid the advertising ban. Is this true? Can anyone point me to any WHO documentss/research so that when I break the news to the doctor (and creche for that matter) they will take me seriously as I have a feeling they will tell me my DS will suffer iron deficiencies etc. if I continue to use newborn milk?

Thank you!

You could try the Food Standards Agency site - I seem to remember there was some info on follow-on milks there basically saying they were unnecessary and not recommended.

Apparently all that "extra" iron isn't digested anyway as it's from an unnatural source.

Surely it's your baby though and you can feed him whatever you like - you don't have to convince anyone! If you were breastfeeding you wouldn't be moving on to a high sugar, high iron milk at 6 months.

Prometheus, call the manufacturers' consumer advice line - there should be a number on the pack. They will almost certainly tell you that 'newborn' formula can be used indefinitely in most cases.

However, you might need to check why your doc is recommending this - is there some reason why your baby is different and has particular nutritional needs?

Thanks for the advice - will call the phoneline. No medical reason why the doctor advised to 'upgrade'. Its just the done thing apparently.

You could go to this document produced by the UK Dept of Health..clearly states what HV's and GP's here will generally say (although there are circumstances where follow-on will be recommended of course..)

The paper seems to be about the advertising and promotion of formula and follow-on formula and concerns about whether there is a clear distinction being made by the companies making the formula. TBH I've not read the whole thing, just searched the DoH because I thought I'd seen something there before stating that follow-on is not recommended over normal formula. I had wondered the same thing but have just stayed with the infant stage 1 formula until my dd turned 1.

www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_113823.pdf

Page 21, point number 63 gives you the paragraph you're looking for if you want evidence for your GP...

HTH!