follow on milk?

[MrsVidic]

hi, I can exclusivley bf my 9 mth old dd and will stop when she's 1. How do you choose which follow on milk to go for?

I don't want her missing out on the iron etc from my milk but I have to go back to work and cant carry on Bfeeding (as I have to wear body armour and it will be quite frankly too painful!

She is BLW at the moment and likes her food but I'm getting confused about how much formula/ follow on milk she will need etc

TIA

At 1 she can go straight onto cows milk. If you have a specific reason for wanting follow on milk such as she has very low iron or something else then you can get special 1+ milk specially designed for children that age. The choice is up to you. They all claim they are the best. I used aptimil but as long as you don't keep swopping and changing I don't think it matters!

I'd go straight on to cows milk when she's one, if you have to stop BFing.

IMHO (and according to HVs etc) follow on milk is a waste of money and the adverts are just playing on parental guilt. If your DD is eating a decent diet she will get all she needs from that.

plus, follow on milk smells vile!!!

I also swapped to cows milk at the age of one - no need for follow on milk

I definitely wouldn't bother with the 1+ milk, it's really sweet. But if you are going to give her milk at nursery/childminder before she is 1 then you should give her formula. Stage 1 (newborn) formula is fine up until 12 months and cow's milk beyond then (barring any allergies of course) - the follow on for 6 months+ is not really necessary and the extra iron can make babies constipated.

A different viewpoint from the others - my ds is 12mths and was excl bf til 10.5mo (when I started gradually introducing some formula morning/afternoon as he's now going to nursery as I'm back at work soon). I used the HIPP Organic follow on milk (suitable from 6mths) and have now got him some of the HIPP Organic growing up milk (suitable from 12mths)and he hasn't had any problems, from what I've read they're a bit gentler than some of the others on the digestion so better for babies who have been excl bf (though that may all be advertising hype!) I'm not going to cows milk quite yet because ds is quite fussy with what he will/won't eat (we did blw as well) and I'm concerned that he is not yet having a fully balanced diet and getting enough iron etc. He's got a lot better over the last month or two so I expect I'll just use it for a coupple of months before going to cows milk.

So I'd say it does depend a bit on what & how much your dd eats.

How much milk is your DD still taking - is she feeding in the day or just morning and night?

I have a real dislike of follow on milk, as I feel it is a product simply designed to create a market where one didn't exist previously, and that all the advertising about iron levels (that awful advert with the huge cup) is just designed to try and feed paranoia so that people buy it.

BUT

Getting off my soap box, I think that there are two different scenarios. If you DD is still taking a lot of milk, there are issues with replacing that directly with cows milk. Cows milk is not a good source of iron and, if she is filling up on milk, she may not eat enough of other foods to get a good supply. You can therefore choose between follow on milk or encouraging her away from milk onto solid food. If she is eating plenty of solids and not masses of milk (I know it's hard to tell when breastfeeding, but the thing I read said the cut off was something huge like about 24 ozs a day), you can just concentrate on ensuring that she eats a nice wide range of iron rich foods.

Also bear in mind that the iron in food can be more easily accessible to the body, particularly if served with food high in vitamin C - e.g. meat with steamed veg.

well I have tried to reduce milk feeds (even now she has cried for 20mins/ refused drink/ food and I have had to bf her) and she has 4 long feeds a day.

she is 25th centile and eats lots of veg/ fruit and meat.

I dont knoq if me bfeeding her is doing more harm than good She wont seem to reduce her milk intake.

Breastfeeding is the best thing you can do for her, so don't worry.
Follow on is an expensive con-designed only to circumvent code of conduct re promoting formula irresponsibly.

You can just go onto milk or keep breastfeeding when you are there.I did this for over 18 months after returing to work when one child was 8 months. With the other, he stopped breastfeeding at 11 months but I never gave any other milk apart from that in cheese, youghourt and so on.

MV - I had the same worry (cut down to 2 feeds; morning and evening rather than stopping) and was also worried. In the event it was fine (you still have 3 months to go and they do change a lot in that time!)

I started by replacing the morning milk with snacks, then a month later the afternoon milk in the same way. Cutting down like that is less drastic. Neither of mine would drink from a bottle or drink cows milk from a cup or glass. They love to eat yoghurts and cheese and eat lots of broccoli soup with milk in it and porridge (ditto).

You know that breastmilk is the best and the fattiest food they can get, so I hope you can just continue for now and try not to worry too much!

I think they are supposed to have about a pint of milk each day at 1 year, although some of this can be in milk, cheese etc.

I've used all of the follow on milks, generally led by what's on offer, or what brand I have a discount voucher for! Also I'll make up 2 or 3oz of follow on formula with hot water and top it up with cold cows milk to make a warm drink.

I think the reason there's so much advertising of follow on milks is that the manufacturers want to build up brand awareness - it's illegal to advertise first stage milk so they have to promote their follow on milks instead.

Do read up on how to safely make up formula milk though - it's important to make it with fairly hot water but the method suggested on the packs isn't the most workable method. There are altrnatives.

check out this thread on the subject. It eased my mind no end.

My son is FF (81/2 months). He has 4 feeds of Stage 1, so maybe you could use that instead of follow on?

thanks for the support guys- she eats loads of broccoli etc so 'i'm just giong to see how her weight goes at 12 months. 120 - I'm going to do the snack thing tomorrow- yogart mid afternoon and banana mid morning.

good luck!