Growing up milk rather than cows milk?

[JJ1471]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help me, sorry if it's a bit long.

My son is 10 months old, was breastfed until about 5 months, then formula fed. I'm all set to move him on to cows milk when he turns one.

But I've just received a marketing leaflet through from Cow & Gate basically telling me that unless I continue with their complete care growing up milk then his diet will not contain enough iron. Apparently to get enough he would need 20 litres of cows milk but can get his daily iron requirements from just two beakers of their formula.

I was under the impression that as long as he was eating a varied diet then the cows milk would provide all his nutrition. However the leaflet contains a handy table to demonstrate that no matter how much iron rich food I stuff in him (meat, lentils, spinach, egg etc.) it will come nowhere near to meeting these daily iron requirements.

I understand that Cow & Gate don't want to lose their customers after a year when everyone switches to cows milk. This is a very clever piece of marketing that they have sent me. My son eats nothing like enough of the iron rich foods to get that amount (at least 6mg each day). So if that is the case, why are we told that it's fine to switch to cows milk?

They might put all that iron in there, but there isn't a cat in hell's chance that the child absorbs anything like that amount.

You're right about the varied diet. They are better off getting their iron from a variety of sources. God, we'd be in the midst of an anaemia epidemic if you believed them. It's marketing.

Why are mothers told it is ok to switch to cows milk?

Because it is ok.

Why have C&G sent you this stuff?

Because they want to sell their product.

Please don't fall for it.

If there was some reason to worry that he was unable to move on to an adequate diet, then there may be a case for a specialist milk high in iron. You would know if this was the case, though.

Thank you, I knew that there was something fishy about it, but didn't know what it was!

Don't worry, I'm going to switch to cows milk, just wanted to know what the leaflet wasn't telling me!

If the leaflet is misleading (which it sounds like it might be) then the advertising complaints people might be interested.

FWIW most breadkfast cereals are fortified with iron, DD had weetabix and so I felt that covered the iron side of things (whether it was absorbed or not is a different question i guess, but it set my mind at rest!)

I don't know whether it's misleading from a legal point of view, but it certainly makes you think that you need this formula to meet the iron requirements. Their webpage here has the same information on it - stating that 2 beakers contain the same amount of iron as 20 litres of cows milk, 6mg per day is needed, and a table showing how much iron other foods contain.

Thanks for all your help!

They don't mention how much iron there is in a large sirloin steak now do they

I suspect that they have worded it very carefully so as not to make any illegal claims. They are clever bastards.

I would second what ShowOfHands says.

The source of the iron is far, far more important than the actual quantity of it. Iron from meat is absorbed the easiest, followed by green veggies and pulses. The inflated quantity of iron in follow on milk is very poorly absorbed.

The Food Standards Agency has a helpful list of which foods are good sources of iron and how easy/hard that iron is to absorb. Increasing little one's vit C intake will also help with iron absorbtion.

Finally, if you are still worried, this British Medical Journal study into follow on milks showed that "iron added to follow on milk was not an important source of dietary iron"

I went through exactly the same thought process as you one month ago when I started giving my DS cows milk and both of these links reassured me it was ok!

Comparing a whole daysworth of "milk" with single small portions of other foods. Add all the other foods up = 4.9mg of iron add the other half of the egg or some apricots or fortified cereal/yoghurt and BINGO 6mg without any of their milk!!!

I hate that advert with the massive great beaker. And teh voiceover being all tinkly laughy "you silly mummies! you thought you were doing it right but you're wrong wrong wrong! feed this special milk to your child you brainless piece of fluff, and all will be well. sciency people you won't understand say so"

I hate that advert too! Like milk is the only source of iron

Just checked out the nutritional information for Weetabix. There's 3.2mg of iron in one Weetabix. So if you gave your child that for breakfast, egg (2.4mg) on toast (0.9mg for wholemeal) for lunch you'd have their iron intake sorted for the day. And that's before you even consider meat, or green vegetables.

I had no idea that Weetabix contained so much iron. We can usually get half one into him (he's a fussy eater!) along with a small serving of Cow & Gates own cereal, which is also heavily fortified with iron (they seem to have forgotten to put that in their table) and a serving contains 2.6mg which is almost halfway there.

Sort of related, at 6 months do you absolutely NEED to switch to follow on milk? Not weaning DD till 6 months but wondering whether need to change from Aptimil 1st to the follow on stuff (ie for going with the solid food). Just wondered in relation to the iron stuff ie that the little beggars have their stores for 1st 6 months then need dietary iron. Was not clear from standing in supermarket reading back of both boxes with DD howling alongside. Is it all just marketing? V confused.

www.weetabix.co.uk/brands/weetabix/weetabix/

Here's the table I looked at.

Funny they didn't mention their own cereal!

My health visitor said that the follow on milk was more nutritionaly appropriate for 6 months onward. I don't think that you do need to switch though. Have to say that the main reason we switched was that the follow on milk can often be found cheaper and with money off coupons etc.!

nutritionally that is

After bfing failed I just used regular stage 1 milk all the way through until 12 months.

I sort of figured that breastmilk doesn't suddenly fortify itself with more iron at 6 months so perhaps it wasn't necessary for formula milk to either. I also worried about the effects of more iron on DS's little tummy. I know how sick iron tablets make me feel!

...however, money off coupons might have swayed me had I had any

I BF so not a formula expert by any means but I don't think there's a need to switch to follow on milk - is it more expensive? I think it's all marketing.

breast fed babies don't have to have iron supplements from 6 months so from that POV I'd have though that the normal formula is fine too. The idea being that they get the iron they need from food from 6 months (ish).

FWIW when weaning DD I spent about an hour reading the backs of all the cereal packets and weetabix was the best fortified cereal I could spot in terms of not having as much sugar & salt as the others. You can steal my research

As an aside did you know that ambrosia rice pudding has all lovely whole ingredients and is the same % sugar as breast milk? That's my top tip

Excellent - weetabix and ambrosia rice pudd for DD it is. 2 of my faves, so hopefully hers too! Will stick with the 1st formula then - she has enough tummy trouble with reflux. Money off coupons might sway me though (HINT)

I always have a rant at the telly when that C&G ad comes on. Personally, as someone who permanently teeters on the brink of low iron levels (have stopped even attempting to give blood now as I get to the front of the queue and just get knocked back because I'm a sniff under the cut off)a pint of cow's milk is NOT the first thing I think of anyway when you mention iron!

A nice steak with a fried egg and some broccoli...lots of meaty and green things (I was once told red wine and dark chocolate were good too - don't know how true it is but I don't like to miss out on valuable sources of iron!). Sorry, I digress....

Natural sources of iron will always be better absorbed anyway, as already pointed out here (especially with vitamin C). Plus if you have too much there is always the unfortunate side effect of constipation (I made a deal with my midwife that I would take the 21 iron tablets the hospital sent me home with after having DD but only one a day, not three a day - after forceps I wasn't risking any such issues!). I have no desire to risk bunging up DD with supplements (although after today when she exploded in her nappy and it covered the seat of her swing again, I might have briefly considered it!)

If we listened to companies like C&G, we'd be amazed we managed to evolve this far over millions of years without them! Or maybe that's what happened to the Neanderthals - they ended up lolling lethargically around their caves looking a bit pale because C&G were not around to provide nutritional supplements for their children so they couldn't last the pace...

ROFL @neanderthals carefully spooning caveman equivalent of C&G into their PFBs. They probably had wise women saying that they had to have special cured snakeskin in their food that only the wise woman could provide at a cost of 32 pebbles, and if they didn't their PFB would never be able to grow a big beard or wield a club well enough to get a mate

Cow & Gate growing up milk (and some other brands e.g. Aptamil 1+ year) contains vanillin so your toddler may get used to vanilla flavoured milk and not like cows milk. Baby food shouldn't contain artificial flavouring in my opinion.