11 Month old and WHole milk?

[sazzler197]

My Lo is 11 months and enjoys his formula, my husband thinks it is time to move to whole milk now, i have read up on it and it says to keep them on formula till they are at least 1 years old, just wondered what you all thought about it? Has anyone switched their little one's to whole milk yet under the age of 1?

Thanks
xxx

Why do you want to switch early? I doubt it will do much harm but if there is no particular reason to switch before a year then not sure why you would.

Just wondered if it was ok thats all! My husband seems to think we should change him for some crazy reason??!! Just wondered what peoples viewss were?

you could give the odd cows milk feed just to get him used to the taste (he may not like it to begin with) and then switch over fully from 1 year.

I'm sure it'd be ok, just not ideal - but if there's no particular benefit to you and your ds I wouldn't bother. If you were for example giving up breastfeeding at 11 months and didn't want to get the baby used to formula and then have to switch again, or if the formula tub ran out just before his birthday etc then I'd just use cow milk. My ds has had occasional cups of cow milk from about 10.5 months because I was breastfeeding the rest of the time and didn't want to use formula.

Mine (11.5m) has it on weekdays during the day now at the CMs, and then bfs at home. It might be an idea to start introducing it to get him used to the taste and swap over gradually.

Cow's milk is not as nutritious, so why bother? What's his reasoning?

For what it's worth, my DS is 11.5 months old and when we ran out of formula the other day, I googled for info and found lots of posts on baby forums saying it's ok to give them cow's milk from 11 months.

So I gave him some full fat milk and he was absolutely fine, liked it and didn't have any tummy problems. We haven't bought formula since then as cow's milk is loads cheaper and less hassle to prepare.

Cow's milk won't do any harm, but it just has less iron/vitamins and more protein/sodium than a baby under 12 months needs, whereas breastmilk and formula have the right amount.

There are reasons why cow's milk is not recommended for children under a year old: before 1yo most of a baby's nutritional needs are provided by milk and only supplemented with the food they eat and cow's milk is not a complete food for a human baby (being made for baby cows) unlike breastmilk and formula (which is derived from cow's milk but modified to compensate for deficiencies in the cow's milk). The main problem with cow's milk is that the iron in it can't be digested properly.

So, until a child is getting most of their nutrition from food which is usually about a year old giving cow's milk instead of formula or breastmilk is not a good idea.

Those are the facts so you can make an informed decision. Some of the comments on this thread would quite frankly be more at home on Netmums

Those are the facts so you can make an informed decision. Some of the comments on this thread would quite frankly be more at home on Netmums

That's needlessly rude. Why not simply disagree rather than also implying that other people shouldn't be on Mumsnet?

I didn't do anything of the kind. I didn't pick any particular posts or suggest anybody leave. I'll throw your "rude" right back at you thank you

Hi everyone

thanks for your replies, i have decided to go with the majority and have bought some more formula and am introducing cows milk gradually to get him used to it! Thank you so much for your advice! x

Heard something about this on R4 the other day - there's a problem with the amount of salt in whole milk - it's fine on its own but when combined with the salt in a couple of slices of bread, breakfast cereal etc it can put a young child's salt levels way above what they should be. Can't remember the details but the interview might still be available - it was on Woman's Hour one day last week.

here's the programme www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b0134w8j