If my bf 10 month old has cow's milk to drink a few times a week, is this a problem?

[systemsaddict]

My bf daughter 10 months is in nursery 3 1/2 days a week. I go and feed her at lunchtime, and have been sending in a few oz. expressed milk for morning and afternoon feeds (though she doesn't often drink the afternoon one).

I am getting to the end of my tether as a result of a lot of non-bf-related things and need to cut as many 'tasks' out of my life as possible to make things a bit easier. Expressing those two feeds (and cleaning the pump, and remembering the milk and cold pack, and keeping track of how much we have stashed) could be one of these things I cut out, especially as she eats well and feeds well from me other times.

So I thought I could switch her to formula just for those few feeds a week, but we've just tried her on it and she's not keen, at all. (I don't blame her, it smells rank! and quite different from her usual milk.) Do you think it would do any harm to just give her cow's milk for that morning and maybe afternoon snack 4 days a week, continuing to bfeed the rest of the time? She already has cow's milk on cereal and likes it.

DD2 is thriving on cows' milk started at 11 months. And new research shows two glasses of milk a day lowers risk of Alzheimers so she can neck milk into adulthood with gay abandon.

So does she bf morning, evening and lunchtime? I would have thought that's fine, doesn't really matter if she has water or cow's milk in the morning and afternoon. She might not like cow's milk as a drink, neither of mine have been keen at this age.

Sounds fine. She is nearly one anyway and is having breast milk too. It obviously doesn't upset her stomach, so sounds ideal.

Cows milk is fine after 6 mths, just not as 'the main drink'....there is no harm in cows milk in cooking or in snacks after this age, it's just that if the infant's main source of nutrition is cows milk, then there would be a risk of iron insufficiency if there were too few iron-rich solids in the diet. If your baby is mainly breastfed and still has plenty of bf at home when you are with her, and has the usual repertoire of a 10 mth old in terms of solid food, then I can't see she would go short of anything.

This is something where common sense and judgement come into play, I think - once you understand the rationale for the general rule (which is formula or breastmilk for main drinks until a year), you can easily see why your situation is fine, especially as there is not much diff between a 10 mth old and a 12 mth old

lovely, thanks guys, just what I was hoping you'd say but I felt the need to check with the experts before gaily launching her onto it!