Formula to whole milk

[BeCyanGuide]

Hello. My LO just turned one. He still has 3 formula bottles a day schedule
6am 7oz bottle
8am breakfast
9am-10am nap
11.30 lunch
13.30 7oz bottle
14.00-15.00 nap
15.30 snack
17.00 dinner
19.00 8oz bottle
How would I go about the switch? He isn’t a great eater, only eats small portions, so top up with formula which seems to work. I cant straight swap all 3 bottles to whole milk though as that would be too much milk (recommend 16ozs I believe) would 2 whole milk one formula be okay? Or is that still too much dairy as formula has dairy. He also has yoghurt every morning so again potentially too much dairy, so looking for advice re how to go about this please?
thank you.

That’s a lot of milk for that age and could well be why he isn’t a great eater- whether it’s formula or whole milk it’s still a lot of calories coming from milk.

I’d ditch the daytime ones immediately and do breakfast earlier if hungry and offer ~150ml ish in a sippy cup with it but milk on cereal and/or yoghurt + water to drink is a fine substitution if he doesn’t want the milk. NHS advice is at least 350ml/12oz or 2 servings of dairy as food. So it’s not a lot especially if you have a DC that likes yoghurt! Of course fine for them to have more but if it’s affecting the appetite for food then that’s when they’re having too much. Advice has also changed recently and whole or semi skimmed is now fine so if you buy semi for yourself then no need to buy whole separately for your toddler which makes life easier!

I would keep the bedtime bottle for now if it’s important to the routine and maybe look to swap that to a sippy cup in a couple of months. Some kids will take cows milk straight off the bat without questioning it, some might not like it cold but will be ok if you warm it slightly. Others will be fussy like my DD and if you DS is also one of these then try introducing it slowly so if he usually has 8oz at bedtime make a 7oz bottle of formula then top up with 1oz cows milk, after a few days make it 6oz formula, 2 oz cows milk and so on until it’s all cows milk.

Thank you. We tried cutting out his before nap bottle at 1.30 he still didn’t eat more then screamed as he was hungry. He’s really stubborn with food (he has reflux and formula intake was an issue now food seems to be the same) so has always been behind on weaning. My worry is if i drop the bottles then he still doesn’t eat he wont be getting enough calories? 6-11.30 seems a long time to go without anything and again 11.30-17.30. Im all new to this so guess snacks in those big gaps but what is a snack classed as, as dont want to give a small snack and hes hungry or too big then he won’t eat his meal. Its so hard.