Advice please on how much milk to substitute for one breast feed

[sebsmummy1]

I have recently dropped a morning breast feed and have supplemented it with 5oz of organic whole milk.

My son has three meals a day, toast and porridge for breakfast (after the milk), lunch and fruit, dinner and pud. He gets a breast feed before bed and occasionally a feed after his afternoon nap if he is crying and his toys etc can't distract him.

Does 5oz sound ok? Too much? He is 11 months and I have made the decision to use milk instead of substituting with formula.

Thank you

I think each baby is different. How is he finding it? Does he drain the bottle and looks like he wants more?

He could definitely drink more yes, but I distract him and then crack on with his food breakfast. Yesterday he was hungry after his afternoon nap so I gave him 4 oz as his dinner was two hours away.

I give him set meals as opposed to let him graze. This always worked well for us as I then demand fed if he seemed hungry between meals. But now I'm paring the demand feeding down I feel quite exposed. I don't want to give him too many milk feeds and disrupt his meal times but obviously don't want him crying because he needs a feed either!

He has water from a doidy cup with his meals.

As far as I understand babies up to 12 months need 1 pint (about 600ml) of breast or formula milk per day for nutrition.

I can't be too specific but I thought that was about 3 bottles of 7 oz a day - therefore I don't think you are giving him enough milk. I am also not clear why he is on cow's milk as part of his main milk diet - it should be breast or formula milk which give a wider nutritional value than cows milk.

Thanks mutely. When I talked to the HV a few months ago regarding weaning and breast feeding he said that my milk was giving my son no nutritional value other than comfort. Yet then contradicted that by saying I would need to substitute it up until a year.

It's a personal decision re.vformula, will understand if you want to flame.

Ok, so I think I will offer breast in the afternoon and evening and if he wakes in the night I also breast feed. I a. Just going to substitute the morning feed I think.

I would say 5oz sounds fine. Most breast feeds are between 2-5oz, as far as I've read/experienced. I would continue with the afternoon one though, as well as the evening one. Another option is to offer a yoghurt snack instead. Yeo Valley do a nice organic natural yoghurt that isn't too low in fat.
I also think, at 11 months, whole milk is fine for one of their feeds. If it's ok as a main milk drink from 12 months then he's not far from that age anyway.

Breast milk always has nutrition? Not sure why your hv would say that.

I have no idea why he said that either pinkpepper, I was quite offended !!

Ok, so DS drained 7oz this morning and seemed very contented after that. I'm using the Yeo Valley milk so will look out for the yogurt.

I feel as though he is getting a good variety of food, he eats really well and I top up with Abidec multi vits so am comfortable substituting one feed at this age.

He had an afternoon and evening feed yesterday and then slept through. My gut instinct is that if he wasn't having enough in the day he would be waking in the night for top ups.

Have no idea why hv would say breast milk has no nutrition, that's bizarre.
Also have no idea why you wouldn't just substitute a breastfeed with formula milk instead of cows. But I know a lot of people have v weird ideas about the wrongs of formula milk and i have no wish to flame you, is your choice if you want to ignore medical advice.

The choice weighs quite heavily on me.