How Did you start to Introduce Cows Milk ?

[lovinit]

DD is now 15 months old and I am thinking of introducing cows milk into her 2 feeds of 220ml a day. What is the most sensible way to do this ? I am lactose intolerant and am afraid that she may be the same and so do now want to cause her to have an upset tummy .

I have no experience of lacose intorence but when I did this wiht my 2, just mixed formula as normal just an oz less and added 1 oz cows milk first few days. Then gradually made less formula and added more cows mild iyswim. You can do it as slowly as you like, could in theory take a few weeks. Think I did it over the space of about 2 weeks. Eventually just has cows milk now and his nightly bf which I can't quite get him to stop. Any ideas for that?

lovinit - have you used cow's milk in cooking at all? If not it might be worth trying that first and seeing if there is a reaction as it would be a small amount so hopefully a small reaction. Otherwise try adding a small amount of cow's milk into one of the feeds - perhaps the morning so you can more easily monitor the reaction. Unfortunately I think the only way you will find out for sure is to try and watch for a reaction. Alternatively, have you thought of trying soya milk?

If by lactose intolerant, you mean, your stomach doesn't like milk much (bloating, gas, etc), then this is generally something that starts at about the age of 7. So your DD wouldn't have it yet.

Ah, I've done a web search, and the problem generally starts, slowly, at 2.

At any rate, if you're lactose intolerant in the way that many non-Western-European people are, you shouldn't worry about your DD suffering with this yet. (And many people, including myself, have had great success reducing their lactose intolerance by gradually increasing their exposure to milk.)

Also, if you're already giving her normal formula, that has cow's milk in it, and presumably lactose as well.

At any rate, you can just try giving her some cow's milk and see how she feels about it, or you can try mixing formula and cow's milk for several feeds to slowly move over.

thanks for all the advice. I will start with adding the cows milk gradually tomorrow !