12 month old breastfed baby will not drink cow's milk - help!

[crokky]

My DD is 12m now - I haven't had problems feeding her before - she was breastfed til 6m and then had breastmilk and solids til 12m. She eats lots of solid food so no problems there. I want to give up breastfeeding because I am finding it really tough and have done it for a year for my DD, not for me - it has been very tough for me.

I gave her a beaker of cows milk today, yesterday and the day before. Initially she drank a very small amount with a "yuk" look on her face and now she pushes the beaker away as soon as she realises what is in there! She does not seem to be missing the breast, I think the issue is that she doesn't like the taste of milk.

How can I get her to have it? I doubt she is allergic to it as I have put it in porridge etc for a while and it has been fine.

I do not know how much breastmilk she has been drinking (ever) because I never expressed so I just have no clue. How much cow's milk must she drink in a day? I am thinking of mixing it into her food as she will eat virtually anything, but before I start doing that, is there anything I can do to help her drink it?

I'm sure I was told 500ml cow's milk between ages of 12 and 18 months. This will include milky porridge, milk in custard, yoghurts etc, not just bottles of milk on it's own. I hate milk on it's own, so I don't blame her!

Have you tried warming up the milk? Making banana milkshake?

Thanks, I'm going to try the banana milkshake as I think that will taste more like breastmilk. Other than that, I will have to make sure she gets it all from food. I don't like milk much myself, although I will drink it and my DH didn't drink milk when he was this age. So it isn't surprising really. DS won't have milk either now, but I didn't have problems with milk this early on with him.

(Have offered it warm or cold, she doesn't want it either way!)

My DS is the same. BF for 15 months, now we've stopped and he won't touch cow's milk. If I offer it to him it gets poured on the floor / table with a looked of outraged disgust.

I've stopped offering it now as I am pretty sure he doesn't have to drink milk so long as he is getting a balanced diet and I was getting fed up of cleaning the floor. HTH.

You might want to give soya milk a try. Mine didn't seem to be allergic to regular formula when I started giving her one cup a day at 8 mos, but when she had more at 10 months, suddenly (like, over 48 hours) she came out in horrible eczema all over. She hadn't ever been that keen on cows milk, so maybe she sensed it. Mine is 19months now and still had 3 cups of soya milk a day as well as eating everything we eat and lots of it. I just find it handy to know that she's getting the fortified vitamins in it, but then I drink the stuff too so don't find it weird.

You can also add milk to mash potato and soup.

DD2 is the same, now at 17 mnths she won't drink cows milk unless it is a body temp with a spoon of ovaltine in
She would drink jersey gold top tesco finest milk, but that was too expensive so I just kept it in mind for emergencies!

(mind you she is BF still so I havent really tried)