cows milk at 12mo

[muslimah28]

hi

ive heard in many places 'no cows milk as main drink until baby is 12mo'. does this therefore mean you should give cows milk as a drink after 12mo? is this in place of bm? if so how much bm should it replace? we're doing blw and feeding on demand, ds still feeds quite a bit. ds is 11mo so have been thinking about it recently.

and also if i leave him for a few hours with someone else, is it ok to leave cows milk for him even though he may normally have a feed in that time? (i'm talking after 12 months obvioulsy). or should i express?

thanks

it shouldn't replace bm it could replace it if you want it to. BM is much better if you're both happy to continue feeding. At one year you don't need to bother with formula if you weren't bf you could just give cow's milk. It would therefore be fine to give cow's milk if you left him with someone else rather than expressing.

Cows milk can be used in food, such as porridge, from 6 months and given as a drink from 12 months. However, it shouldn't replace bm at this age, unless you want it too. The current advice is bf for a minimum of 2 years. Good luck with getting them to drink it though, mine wouldn't touch the stuff when I was bfing. Who would want to swap warm, sweet milk and a cuddle with mummy for some cows milk in a plastic beaker

thank you. ds is certainly in no hurry to give up mummy cuddles and yummy milk- in fact he wakes up at night especially for it am happy to carry on bfing but may just try him out with cows milk to see how he takes to it, that way i know whether to express or not on the odd occasion i do leave him

thanks :)