Can I give cows milk now??

[themightywalrus]

My 11 month old has just stopped breastfeeding. He doesn't seem interested & turns his head away when I try. We were down to about 4 feeds a day - 7am, 2pm, 6.30pm, 11.30pm. It's the 7am and 2pm that he hasn't taken for a couple of days. He eats well and drinks water throughout the day too, so can I give cows milk for those two feeds now? He will turn 1 year on 2nd July. I'll keep doing the other feeds for as long as he still wants them. Many thanks.

My dd is 1 in a couple of weeks. I ran out of formula yesterday so just gave her cows milk. She didn't bat an eyelid at the change. I'm sure he'd be fine. My dd eats & drinks well too.

We started dd on cows milk a little late (mainly because I had 3/4s box of formula left when she was 1 and I didn't want to waste it!) I'm fairly sure a few weeks early won't make a blind bit of difference. All children do things at different times anyway (sitting/ crawling etc) I'm sure gut development is just as varied!!!

Personally I think it will be fine if you are still doing the other 2 breastfeeds as if he needs extra nutrition from the milk he will be getting it from those.

However if he stopped bf altogether I would probably give formula for nearly a month - even though it doesn't seem that long it is still a reasonable proportion of the year.

I would give formula up untill his first birthday, my HV said no cows milk before a year old because its not sufficient for them x

Yes it's fine it's only three weeks , nothing magically happens to your babies digestive system at exactly 12 months.

I'm going to try doing the same as want to stop bf in the next few weeks. Had been trying to give dd formula in bottle or cup but she seems utterly disgusted by it. So don't think she is going to drink any.

I'm in Sweden the advice here is to swap to cows milk at 10 to 12 months. I don't imagine Swedish kids are any diff to UK kids.
Although i guess if they are poor pr picky solid eaters you'd want to cont formula for the nutrients.