12-24 months, using both whole milk and formula?

[drspouse]

DD is a way off 12 months but an upcoming holiday has concentrated my mind.
Formula is a PITA and we were cheering when DS could drink whole milk instead but then we discovered that it was a bit easier for travel especially when they are still needing quite a bit of milk - it's hard to buy whole milk in small bottles, keep it cool etc.
Has anyone mixed the two but mainly used whole milk at home? Or any alternatives e.g. small cartons of long life whole milk - but where to get them?

Sorry no help but I had never even thought of this! So here's a bump... I need to know the answer too now

We alternate - toddler formula before bed, and whole milk in the mornings.

We use cows milk at home but little bottles of ready made formula when we camp or don't have fridge access. It's expensivd but at 16mo my son doesn't drink much milk, he was ebf to 6mo and weaned onto cheese and yoghurt and other dairy/calcium.

DD is 13 months and we use whole milk at home but I still use the little bottles of aptamil when travelling/out and about etc. No issues at all.

I think probably only necessary to bring formula over 12 months if your dd doesn't take well to cow's milk. Otherwise, assuming you're holidaying in Europe it will be easy to get glasses of milk in cafes/buy milk in supermarkets.

We have done Spain/Italy without having to take milk with us without problem. Lots of uht milk for sale in eu, and small cartons for kids packed lunches

I've always found it hard to get small amounts of whole milk to be honest. In the UK most cafes etc only have semi, ditto hotels. We've been to the US (huge whole milk cartons in big supermarkets but if you are knackered and only near a convenience store, they usually only have semi, and only Starbucks reliably has it as a drink).
I think we'll try mainly whole milk and a premade carton of toddler formula once or twice a week to keep her taste for it. DS refused whole milk point blank about 3 months after he turned 2 and stopped having it "milk no nice mummy".

You won't really need milk while out and about 12-24 months, so I wouldn't worry about it.

You need it in hotels in the evenings/mornings, and at lunchtime if she's still drinking it with lunch, hotels NEVER have whole milk IME. You're lucky if you've always had some with you in such situations. If you've driven in a car from one hotel to another with no ice packs there's no way to bring it either.

As a one off (or for a holiday) semi skimmed won't make any difference.

Posted too soon.

Also when we go camping we freeze the milk (we still use whole as standard) and use it as ice packs to keep the rest of the food cool. Once defrosted we leave it overnight under the car to stop the sun hitting it in the morning. You can smell it when it goes off.

I agree with pp, I wouldn't worry about using semi skimmed on a holiday, its short term and you can always make sure she has plenty of cheese/ice cream on holiday

I'll see how much she's actually drinking volume wise by then but I wouldn't be happy with a newly 12 month old drinking semi skimmed morning, noon and night for a 2 week holiday. One lunch and dinner if she likes the taste, sure.
Good tip about freezing and using as an ice pack though, thanks.

Wouldn't it make more sense giving semi skimmed rather than formula at that age?

The NHS recommendation is whole milk or either infant or full fat toddler formula until they are 2. Not semi-skimmed as a drink before 2. If it was 23 months then I'd feel comfortable, but not at just gone 12 months.

We used whole milk at home, then for a holiday at 18 months we used ready made formula for the journey (so as to avoid issues of keeping it cold) and then begged fresh milk (probably semi skimmed) from the hotel for bedtime/morning milk. DD didn't appear to notice or care.

In fact the plane also had milk (semi skimmed) so we could have used that instead of the formula

Honestly I really wouldn't worry too much about the holiday. Even if DC skipped milk the entire holiday it wouldn't matter too much.

They don't have to drink milk at all, so I wouldn't worry too much about formula vs. semi skimmed vs. whole milk. They need about 350mg of calcium a day which is equivalent to 300ml milk, but equally you could give 300ml of yoghurt, milkshakes, custard and cheese instead. I would probably take a few little cartons of formula though for ease, especially if your child needs a bottle to fall asleep.

I assumed the recommendation was for whole milk because if they DO drink a lot, they can easily fill up on semi skimmed without getting enough calories or fat?

And DS at 12 months was drinking a large volume of milk daily, but we eased him on to any new milk by mixing it (and he didn't like his old milk when that was all we had). By 23 months, not so much.

Like I say, not an issue for a couple of days, but a couple of weeks I'd rather not risk either not finding anything (no milk, no sleep, jetlag...) or refusing something because it's an unfamiliar taste (in an unfamiliar place) or just existing on the wrong kind of milk. Sticking to routine when travelling has got us along nicely with DS so we'll give it a go with DD too.

Depending what type of holiday you're going on (as in, if you're staying somewhere with a fridge rather than camping etc) you'll be fine.

Dd has just turned 1 and I've swapped her to cows milk and recently weaned her off bottles through the night (she was still drinking 3x 7oz bottles of formula ) and she's now only having one bottle of cows milk in the morning and one before bed then plenty to eat through the day, including cheese and yoghurts. I don't think you'll need to give a 12 month old milk when out and about through the day to be honest!

We used a combination of milk. And when we went on holiday i took the 4x 1litre (i think) packs of Aptimil for the times when I couldnt get cows milk from the hotel e.g. Middle of the night. We kept it in the fridge in the room once opened.

On holiday when ds was 14 mo took formula because I wasn't sure about the quality of local milk (in spite of being developed country- USA!!)
Glad I did- many places don't have fridges in rooms and also lots of milk had loads added to it which I wasn't keen on
Also made flights easy