What are the risks? Are there any?

[FebMama]

Ds2 is 10 months old. He will be a year old at the end of Jan.

We bulk bought Aptamil, his formula milk, a couple of months ago from Costco. It’s lasted us ages which has been handy!

Hes currently on 3 bottles a day. Around 6oz when he gets up, 4oz around 3pm and 8oz before bed.

We probably have about 1.5 tubs of his formula left which will last us until about the end of December.
What would be the risks of me giving him cows milk at 11 months as opposed to 12? Would that be ok?

I don’t mind having to buy more formula for another 4 weeks if I really HAVE to. But do I have to? Is there risks of giving it just 4 weeks earlier than planned?

go for it

I think the main risk is that it's higher in salt, and lower in other useful things (like protein and fat? But you'd have to check). Also formula is fortified with vitamins eg vitamin D.

I think you'd get away with it if you were very strict with no salt in food, and gave the right foods and multivitamin to supplement the things you lost.

But others will comment on here to be more cautious- I'm probably on the less cautious end of the spectrum

When you listed the three bottles, is that all he has or do you still breastfeed a bit? If you do, I reckon that covers a lot of what you need and I'd be even less cautious

Following with interest!

3 bottles sounds about right at 10 months. They only need 13.5 Floz a day.

I would but one more tub OP then switch to Cow's Milk when that one is finished. As others have said salt is the main problem as their kidneys are immature.

Thank you all for your replies!

I was definitely planning on giving him a vitamin supplement anyway when moving into cows milk.

I forgot to add, he often has cows milk in foods anyway. Eg, porridge, weetabix and mashed potatoes.

Also when he moves onto cows milk, I'll be dropping the 3pm bottle and he will go to just morning and night milk.

@Mummymummy89 I don't breastfeed no, stopped at 4 months. But he is on 3 meals per day and snacks/water too.

It's funny because with my first, I was overly cautious and waited until he hit 12 months. Its funny how your approach to things changes with the second as I'm less cautious as I used to be 🤣

I'll ponder on it some more but I'm nearing more for the option of just going to cows milk 4 weeks early. I suppose there's no magic button that gets pressed on their 1st birthday that suddenly makes them more suited to it!