going to work tomorrow & haven't got enough ebm to give ds - advice please!

[Spink]

I've just completely forgotten, while I've been off during the christmas break, to build up a supply of ebm. He only gets expressed milk when I'm at work, one feed at 3pm ish, about 6oz. I can only get about 2oz out tonight. ARGH.
Would it be ok to add 4oz of cow's milk to that? he has cow's milk with his cereal for breakfast.
or, is it better for him to have some formula, or another kind of milk? he is 10 months old. Not had formula before.
ANy advice would be very much appreciated!
Thank you

Don't worry about it. Let him have water if still thirsty after your ebm has run out. Or more solids if still hungry. He'll make up for it if he needs to by feeding straight from you when you are back from work. At 10 months he is not depending on bm to stay alive.

Personally I never gave my children formula, or cow's milk before 1 year but i think I was in a minority.

I used to have a supply of ready-made formula cartons for when i couldn't produce enough ebm.
I'd do that rather than give cow's milk.

i sent dd to nursery from 8 months with no milk. i just fed her before and after. she drank water from a cup.

bum. now I am wondering if the cow's milk in cereal thing is such a good idea. We've only been doing it for the past week or so - decided to stop expressing bm for cereal because it just became impossible to fit it into the crazy morning routine
would it be better to replace with formula?? He's been eating cheese, and fromage frais without probs, so as those are cow's milk products I went for the cow's milk in the cereal too. We're not an allergy-y family at all, which is why I haven't been too worried about it..

and, of course, THANK YOU for your kind responses!

If he's been having milk on cereal and other cow's milk products, then you have already introduced dairy to his diet. If it hasn't done him any harm so far, I don't suppose there is much to be gained by stopping it. In fact, why not follow Goat's example and just let ds get his milk quota from you with far less faffing about?

BTW re cereal you could offer porridge in the morning with no dairy, just mash a banana or other fruit into it. The rest of the family could also have porridge, v good for you, cheap and easy to make in quantity. If you can be bothered; must admit I can't always. Just a thought.

sorry to hijack this bit I was wondering this too but for a much smaller baby. Excusively bf 4 month old, I left 5 oz with dp today whilst out at dentist knowing he would want more probably (he is always ravenous and has been known to take up to 9 oz!) but timed it so would get back in time to top him up with the boob. Unfortunately got stuck in traffic so dp had half an hour of screaming. He asked whether he could have diluted the 5 oz with cooled boiled water up to 9 oz at the beginning to "fool" baby that one time? Could he? Obviously I know it would dilute the nutritional value but just as a one-off?

When mine were pre-solids I took them with me to the dentist and the hairdresser, Banana.

Sorry Barbarmama.

I don't think it would do any harm barbamama.

To Spink - if you think you absolutely need to leave him with milk then give him organic full fat cow's milk. Don't bother with formula, he is getting all the lovely nutrients that he needs from the breast milk so wont get deficient by having a cow milk feed a day.

Elasticwoman (and bitter Goat ) - ds has just recently dropped his mid morning feed, and I could only feed him when I get home at 7pm. So I'm not happy to just give water during the day. It probably wouldn't do much harm, just for one day, but I don't think he would be particularly happy for those 4 hours..

his porridge already has fruit mashed into it, we could replace the milk with water I guess, but of course he wouldn't then be getting the calcium.. ah the dilemmas!
What have you read/heard about the cow's milk question? I know it is govt policy to recommend no cow's milk til 1yr, but I've read that, as long as cow's milk isn't given in huge quantities, bits should be no problem in allergyless families?
And the cheese/yoghurt thing is supposed to be less of an issue because the way they are made breaks down the lactose / proteins that can cause the problems. I'd be really interested in your opinions, especially if you know different!

and barbamama - when ds was that age I was told by bfc to give cooled boiled water mixed with ebm to get ds off night feeds... which we actually didn't end up doing as we were too lazy..just turned out to be easier to bf! Anyway. My point is, it doesn't sound like it could do any harm as a one off..

Spink - I am expressing for DD2 (9m) when I am at work. If I don't have enough (as my freezer died taking 3 months of EBM with it) then I either dilute what I have got with boiled water or give her a bottle of cow's milk. Like yours, she has cow's milk on cereal and in cheese etc and as she is not an allergic type child I figure this is preferable for us to trying to give her formula .

Barbarmama - I haven't done this for a smaller baby but reckon it wouldn't do any harm on an occasional basis. Babies can have boiled cooled water (though BF ones don't actually need it) so I am sure that fooling him with a bit of extra dilute milk won't do any harm.

HTH

I vote for not worrying about it and letting him drink water and eat more other stuff. he'll be fine.

Spink - my understanding of the cow's milk thing is that babies can't have it regularly instead of BM or formula as it isn't nutrionally dense enough. I thought the one year thing was to stop people trying to replace BM or formula early when it is still the baby's main nutrition source with a much cheaper product which is designed for a baby cow rather than a baby human.

If he is OK with it neat on cereal, I'd go for the odd bottle of it instead of formula. But that's just me - a bit slack

deckthehalls - slackness can be a wonderful thing. thank you

I would give him 1 feed of cows milk, not mixed with EBM. I asked my BF counsellor about this when DD was the same age and she said one or two feeds here and there instead of EBM would not hurt as long as she still BFed when I got home and then whenever on demand through the night etc.

It actually helped get her used to it for when she had to go fully onto cows milk whilst at Nursery 3 days a week when she was 13m as I could not express enough and it was stressing me out!

Well when my ds1 was a baby, cows' milk was allowed at 6 months. With ds2 it suddenly became 12 months, but I developed selective deafness then.

If you haven't any allergies then I can't see what the problem would be, especially if it's a relatively rare occurence. But then being a slack mum came/comes very easily to me!

Having an allergic type Child myself I thought I would add to the cows milk thing. Nutritionally it is not sufficient as a "food" for a Human Infant therefore giving it in place of BM is not recommended on a regular basis. The normal recommendations is not at all before 6m then from 6m as an addition to the diet (on cereal etc) then from 12m as a "Drink" with 3 square meals of solids in between. With DD I was advised to avoid it until 9m just to give her system a little more time to mature before introducing it. As your LO is 10m it should be fine just keep an eye for any particularly nasty nappies etc.

I also second the Organic Full fat version (a bit more like Mummy Milk - definately Full Fat and nearly Organic ) No seriosly - apparently it has less mucus in it {yuck} according to Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall.

My ds2 is just a year old but I have been giving him one feed of cows milk for the last month(ish) and he gets a BF morning and night. I don't quite get that once they turn 1 they can magically have cows milk. IMO if they your lo is having two bf a day and eating well 1 feed of cows milk every so often is not going to be a big deal.

Would also endorse organic milk - and not just for babies. Lots of good stuff, especially Omega 3.

thank you everyone for your lovely supportive and stress reducing messages! I'm going to go with the cow's milk - full fat organic of course!