Breastfeeding to cows’ milk in a cup - has anyone done this?

[HarrietM87]

I’m going back to work when my bottle refusing baby is 1. I’d like to keep bf for a month or so to ease the transition for him, but then want to stop. He’s never taken a bottle and will only drink water from an open cup. Is it feasible to just start giving him cows milk in a cup and how much will he need? At the moment I can’t imagine not bfing him but I work long hours in a stressful job and want to ttc our second child so it needs to be done.

Try a Doidy cup

Yes that's exactly what I did. However my son was quite dubious of the cows milk at first despite happily drinking water from a cup. He'd refused bottles/ expressed milk too. What I had to do was really water the cows milk down till he got used to it, then gradually increase the amount of milk.
Don't forget they can also get their calcium from other sources at 1 so it doesn't need to be all milk.

I did that with both my two- DD at 12 months, DS at about 20. Both were fine, I used free flow spout Tommee Tippee cups and warmed the milk a little.

As for how much- given that while bf you have no idea how much they’re having, I figured there was no point trying to measure it by then went with a cup morning and night, plus more in the day depending on how well they’d eaten. By 1yo I’d say they’ll let you know if they’re hungry.

This is what I did, although both dds refused cows milk till about 2. They drank water from a cup until then and ate a ton of cheese for the calcium!

I had no choice with my bottle refuser. She took a while to get used to it but got there in the end.

My son suddenly self-weaned off bf at 12 months. He was used to drinking water from a cup so I tried giving him cow's milk instead but he wasn't keen. What worked for me was blending a little banana into the milk - he loved that and then I gradually reduced the fruit till he was just having plain milk.

It is far better for a breastfed baby to go to a cup no bottle. Dont leave it until you go back to work. Start the change to whatever routine he will have at least a month before, You can still breast feed morning and night

We went straight to cows milk in a free flow tomee tipee at 1 yrs and I continued bf morning and night until 15 months. Ds1 hated it initially so we used to give it to him whilst he watched ‘in the night garden’. Unfortunately I was pregnant and the smell of milk made me very nauseous. It took ages until I could watch ‘in the night garden’ without feeling sick!!! All my 3 ds initially hated cows milk but now we get through about 4 pints a day!!!

Yes, three of my four dc went from finishing breastfeeding at one straight into cows milk in to a lidded cup. The other had very little in the way of a bottle either. Bottles completely by-passed me.

Not an open cup though. That would really cause lots of headaches. Whatever preference you have for lidded cup, doesn’t matter. I hated the doidy cup!

Thanks for the advice everyone! He has a doidy cup at the moment and also drinks from normal plastic ones. He likes to take big gulps which is why a sippy cup doesn’t cut it for him! I’ve never been able to express anything really, which is partly why we didn’t persevere with the bottle when he was younger. Is it ok to try him on small amounts of cows milk in a cup before he’s 1? I don’t want it to replace breast milk obviously but guess I should try to get him used to it.

I did cows milk before 1, it just wasn’t the main milk. What about a cup with a straw? May be too young? The advantage is it would be better for his teeth.

They can have cows milk in things before 1yr so I can’t imagine that ‘tasters’ would be a problem. Once established my ds always had (and in fact still do) have milk at mealtimes. Initially this was so that any mess was ‘contained’ and now it is just a habit!