BF to cows milk - what age?

[Sunshineseeker80]

I had a pretty rough start to BF and said I would only do for 6 months but LO is 7 months and still EBF. I am fairly keen to stop but right now but formula seems a little faffy for just 5 months if we can move to cows milk at 12 mths - in fact it will be less time if I drop the 4-5 feeds a day slowly.

So my question is what age did people introduce cows milk? Or to put it another way, if I move from EBF at say 10 months, would it be better to do formula for 2 months then cows milk, or go straight to cows milk then?

The nhs advise is no less than 12 months.

I gave dd cows milk on her first birthday. Never had formula after that.

Now at 22 months, she wont drink milk or eat cheese and hasnt done for around 4 months

Advice*

Just be aware they might not be happy to swap! I tried cows milk with dd at one who spat it out and still hates it to this day!

Ds wouldn't take formula and I found expressing really difficult so he had cows milk while I was at work from about 8 or 9 months. I continued BF as well until just before his 1st birthday when he weaned himself. He's fine, HV said they recommend 12 months to reduce allergy risk so not to start earlier if you have a history of allergies in your family

Ds wouldn't take formula and I found expressing really difficult so he had cows milk while I was at work from about 8 or 9 months. I continued BF as well until just before his 1st birthday when he weaned himself. He's fine, HV said they recommend 12 months to reduce allergy risk so not to start earlier if you have a history of allergies in your family

NHS advice is not before 12 months, I believe because it doesn't have the nutrients necessary for a child younger than 1 that breast milk or formula have. Is mix feeding a possibility? With DS1 I went back to work when he was 8mo and because I had difficulties expressing (mostly time and place restrictions) I would bf first thing, then he'd have whatever I expressed and formula through the day then bf when I got home. I gave him his first cows milk drink at 1 and he drinks it like it's going out of fashion, but as pp have said there are no guarantees your LO will take to it.

I may be wrong on the nutrient thing, but I'm sure that's what the HV said

I used full fat cows milk after about 7 months (I think!!) in food, but all milk feeds were breast milk, occasional formula overnight. So for porridge, thinning down purée (my dd1 is now 14 so this was a long time ago!!) etc I used cows milk, as was the advice at the time iirc.

We have no history of allergies in either family and all 3 dc continued to bf past 1 year. Dd1 won't drink cows milk now, dd2 isn't keen but ds (12) is a milk monster, which I do encourage as he's a tall, incredibly skinny rake of a boy!

Also, I couldn't be aff fed making up formula. I'm the epitome of lazy parenting!

Evidence based information on this topic here Is it safe to use cow’s milk or other milks as a supplement to breastfeeding?

I'd stick more or less to 12 months but to be honest DS1 had beakers of cow's milk in the day but still breastfed 2-3 times from about 10.5 months. But he didn't like cow's milk so drank very little, even once I stopped breastfeeding.

I swapped to a carton of formula in the day (half before lunch, rest of it in afternoon) at about 9 months, with breastfeeds in morning, evening and night, as I couldn't be bothered with making formula and decided that 61p a day on cartons wasn't too bad. Then at 12 months switched the formula to cows milk. (DD dropped the night time feeds herself at about 10 months and the morning one at about 13 months so we just do an evening bf now)