Growing up milk vs cows milk. Comments please.

[PavlovtheCat]

Comments - not critisisms or judgements please. Or fighting (grin0

So. For a 12 month old - Cows milk vs growing up milk.

MD - water for emergencies? you mean to top up the radiator

For the run-out-of-milk scenarios - I send DP to the shops for more!

My thinking has always been 'why give them something fake when they can have something natural'

My kids don't expect much pavlov.

Seriously thoug, they never had milk after I stopped breastfeeding.Cheese and yoghurt and milk on cereal but never to drink.Tis a myth that they need loads of it,although obviously perfectly harmless.

Indeed Elf.
And lets face it, milk can be procured in all of Britissh Isles at most hours of the day yes?

TLE - I agree in theory about not wanting natural, which I guess is why I started this. DD has been BF until the last few weeks, however paranoia set in after some inappropriate/judgemental/worrying comments about DDs small size/lack of growth/problem with my bm/need to get her on a bottle urgently. So, now she takes formula, and over the last few weeks decided she prefered it to my bm .
Anyway, she drinks tons of it. and has put on no more weight than she would have/had been with my bm, which makes me feel vindicated in my fight to keep bf as long as I did.

But I guess I am just worried about her not getting enough vits etc, even though she eats balanced diet nd wondered if she would get more/better nutrition/calories with growing up milk. Also DP thinks she should drink tons of formula, not cows milk. I want to decrease milk/increase solids he does not, but oh that is for another thread I think.

I guess, if I am honest, I just need some tools with which to arm myself when I am challenged on my reasons for wanting to feed cows milk and not be drawn into the marketing world as pointed out by MD!!!

TLE - I meant 'wanting natural' not 'not wanting natural'!

reading through thread. what age would you start using cow's milk? dd2 has just started taking to a beaker and i can nolonger be bothered expressing for the one beaker a day (i've spent with dd1and2 over 30 weeks of exclusive expressing and then also a couple of times a day until now).

she is 11 months old but she was 11 weeks early and i was told to count backwards until she's 2 which makes her just over 8 months.

Growing up milk is the same as follow on milk a huge marketing thing by the formula companies to keep you spending money with them long after you would normally have stopped.
Full fat cows milk (I do use Organic) and a good diet should be enough. DS has goats milk as he is struggling a bit to get his tummy used to cows milk and the goats milk is a bit more gentle on his tummy. He does get a vit from the dr prescribed rather than pay huge prices as there is a few less vits in the goats milk but norma milk and a good diet shouldbe more than enough.

Kreamkrackers that is something you might want to ask your hv. My friends twins were prem and for everything they had to count back (she was told until 18 months) and they regularly saw a paed and one was given the go ahead to cows milk at 12 months (real not adjusted) and the other was kept on other ilk for a while after so I suppose it may be an individual child thing with many factors to decide.

KK - I started introducing organic full fat cows milk about 3 weeks ago, in a beaker at breakfast just to get her used to difference in taste, she really likes it, but then she really likes pretty much everything put in front of her, apart from lentils and mashed up banana!

She had been up to a few weeks ago, a breastfed baby.

I think, the thing I had been thinking about regarding the follow on milk is that, it is fortified with vitamins. I was under the impression that formula milk in general was meant to replicate as closely as possible the nutrients found in human breastmilk, and, given that breastmilk changes as your child grows, and is encouraged to continue breastfedding when a toddler, the formula milk would continue replicating the breastmilk more closely, if breastfeeding is not an option.

Or does cows milk, being natural, contain the same/similar/closer nutrients to breastmilk?

The thing about formula is that it is man made it does have vitamins but they are added. IT is made to be closer to bm than cows milk but is still a long way off.
Cows milk does have vitamins found naturally in it.
In all honesty humans are not made to digest cows milk it is something we learn to tollerate and why so many people are intollerant to it. This is also why quite often you also have some ahem lovely nappies when you first start cows milk to babies because they are getting used to digesting it.
So from that point of view one is not better than the other.
There is no "need" for follow on milk if a baby is on formula there is no reason not to continue on the same one they have always drunk. If baby is over a year or there about there is no need to stop bf and go onto formula you may as well go onto cows milk.
Formula companies would like you to believe that formula is the best option but in reality cows milk is actually very nutritious.

DD stopped wanting bf herself . And yes, her nappies have been horrid [eew emoticon]

neither, particularly
follow on milk is a gigantic rip off
cow's milk is OK but I don't get why everyone is so hung up on it.
I have never really bothered to give it to my dds and they have never been that bothered about it - they don't see it as a "drink" they just have juice or water.
or actual food

I fed dd growing up milk until she was nearly two because of the added vitamins and iron. It's a bit like giving vit supp, so I didn't have to str ess if she didn't have a good food day.

I think the technical term for follow on milk is WhatALoadOfBollocks

organic full fat in this house

or not anymore as they both refuse it (unless on cereal)

Cows milk definitely. Is your DD 12 months already Pavlov??

many cultures have gotten on fine without milk from another mammal after human milk.

American Indians, Chinese, Japanese, South east asians, australian aborigines...

in fact it is only caucasians who have a genetic quirk which makes them able to digest milk past the age of about seven.

for most peoples, they enzyme lactase disappears from the stomach which makes them milk intolerant later.

Cow's milk definitely.

If 12 month old babies don't like to drink cows milk then don't give them any. make sure they have enough calcium and dairy in their food and give juice/ water to drink.

I sometimes wonder if babies who continue formula or fortified milk after 12 months are fussy eaters because they are too full of milk? Milk is very over rated IMO.

Vitamins and iron can be obtained form food. If they are not eating well then i would give supplements rather than continue milk.

Follow on milk and 'growing up milk' are marketing cons - they are totally unmecessary.

pavlov your dd is 11 months isn't she? mine is too and i know the whole until they are one food is for fun thing, but then once they are 1 all of a sudden it is meant to be come really important and they should drink less milk/more solids. only today i realised i should start cutting down his milk cos he doesn't really eat a lot of proper food which i haven't been worried about cos he's not 1 yet but in 10 days he will be so i'm trying to cut his milk down. i know the second he hits one it isn't going to affect him if he still drinks lots of milk but i figured now he is almost 1 it is time to start trying to get him on 3 solid meals a day every day.

Thanks everyone for your comments, I have found it all really interesting, especially as there are differing opinions which I was not expecting!

Twinkle - DD is not quite 12 months, almost tho (2 weeks or so!). Her real food (solids) eating is great, she has a great appetite, enjoys and eats a good amount of a varied diet, even with the large quantaties of milk she consumes. Her breakfast is the only area where she does not eat so much, and here I have cut down the amount of milk as she wakes up later these days (yey!) and as such her milk intake is closer to breakfast time.

I guess the concern of mine, in respect of not drinking lots of milk after 12 months, and especially my partners is that she is a small baby, always has struggled to gain weight, although never a problem with eating, she burns off a significant amount of calories with what she currently eats, and I worry withdrawing the formula milk would reduce the calory intake. DP especially thinks she needs milk longer as she did not grow so well in the womb .

I personally agree that growing up milk is a marketing ploy, but its hard not be sucked in as they pull on the fact that mothers want the best for the children, and I myself am guilty of worrying that if I dont do what they say I will damage my child! (rational vs irrational I guess).

Pavlov - some children are just natutally small. I don't think that continuing formula milk will make any difference to that TBH. My DD1 (DC4) was very much smaller than her brothers. She has remained petite but has caught up with a lot of her friends.

I would get her onto 'normal' milk and food wherever possible. There is no advantage to formula IMO.

The thing is as well is that the main reason that we are told to give milk is for calcium and there are loads of foods that have it in anyway so milk is not that big a deal really.

they should only have 12-24 oz of milk a day because anymore than that can prevent iron absorption.