Is Stage 3 'Follow On Milk' a gimmick or do our LO's need it?

[Willowwisp]

I'm weaning my 6 month old DD and I was just wondering is the Stage 3 'Follow on Milk' a gimmick?

I've looked at the ingredients and they are more or less the same apart from there is more iron in the formula? I'm the type of person who if it says 'follow on for 6 months onwards' I will get because I think I should!!! So I did! And now I'm not sure, she has been on it for four days now and it could be purely co-incidence but she seems a bit unsettled at the moment, but that could be because she maybe coming down with something (I've had a tummy upset)or could it be the milk?

I'm sick of worrying about her milk and just wish I could stick to one, she has always had Aptamil 1 and been OK on it. So my burning question is, shall I just go back to Aptamil 1 and make sure she has plenty of iron rich food or do we need to keep on the follow on milk, I'm soooooo confused!!

It is a gimmick designed to get round restrictions on advertising formala. If you want to go back to the other one then that should be fine imo.

gimmick

gimmick

bloody irresponsible marketing

Gimick

Stick to Aptamil 1 until 1 year then switch to cows milk. That's what we did with no problems.

gimmick

sorry gimmick

Gimmick.

It could well be constipating her - it has more iron in so they can market it and get their brand known (to get round the infant formula advertising ban) - but it has more iron in than children need.

Don't worry about iron. Infant formula is perfectly adequate for her needs till she's one. Put her back on that and leave the gimmicky stuff on the shelf.

(And this is one of the reasons I want a total ban on formula advertising and better information for parents)

What about the iron though? Don't formula-fed babies need more iron at around 6 months? I thought they depleated their own iron faster than breast-fed babies and so might be more at risk from a lack of it? I'm not sure where i got that idea from though so feel free to ignore it

Nothing more than yet another way some greedy knob in silly glasses has worked out how to part you from your hard earned cash.

You do konw that it is nine times more expensive than regular milk don't you?

I suspect gimmick or you would be able to get it free like you can other milks (I am told, you can't - not had free milk entitlement myself so only annecdotal exp).

I swapped DD to Aptamil 3 at around 8 months. My ONLY reason for doing so was it was about 50p cheaper (so don't really see it as a gimmick as why would they want to promote something cheaper?!) However it made her have the most godawful runny sour milk smelling nappies so promptly switched her back to aptamil 1 and then onto cows milk about 2 wks ago (she is 1 next week). Don't see that cows milk is any cheaper though used to use roughly 1.5 tubs of aptamil a month so costing around £12. Cows milk is 54p a pint and has roughly 5.5 pints a week (but buy 6pints) so thats roughly £13 a month. Just an observation - was sorely disappointed when I realised this as was always told it would be so much cheaper when on cows milk!

I'm embarrassed that I fell for it now!!!

But thanks for your advice, back to No 1 for us then, can't bear the thought that she might have a poorly tummy because of constipation.

loolop, it is a gimmick to get around the formula advertising legislation, as hunker says.
They don't want you to buy the cheap product rather than the more expensive one, they just want to get their brand name into your head.