Cows milk- MN jury needed on HV advice

[sweetnitanitro]

I took 21 mo DD to get weighed today, mainly so I could meet the new HV. DD is fine and healthy and I have no reason to think otherwise. She is still BF a LOT but has quite a few snacks during the day (fruit and bread are favourites) as well as joining in at meal times, even if it involves just chucking food on the floor.

New HV started stressing the importance of giving DD cows milk. I'm not against cows milk, I drink it myself, but I don't see the point of giving it to DD when she can have BM which is better and free. DD also drinks plenty of water.

Amongst the reasons HV gave were- DD needs to learn to drink out of a cup (she can, she has water), DD will need a replacement for when I stop BF (not planning to any time soon). Then I thought she may be worried about allergies so I pointed out that DD has had cows milk before with no problems but HV said that was not the reason.

She also asked if I put it in any of my cooking and suggested I give DD custard or something else with cows milk in. I left feeling a bit annoyed and confused about why exactly it was important to give DD cows milk. Can anyone shed any light on what the HV was on about? TIA

HV is loon. Perhaps has vested interest: is her husband a dairy farmer?

Carry on as you are

Maybe she is married to a milk man?

Just ignore her.

the medical profession is obsessed with children getting cow's milk.

ignore her.

dd2 was FTT - she just didn't put on weight well after about 4 months old. slid slowly down the centiles, and we ended up under care of a paed and dietitian.

they both insisted I should give ehr cow's milk, put cream in her mash, butter on everything, etc. this, despite dd2 still being breastfed (breastmilk has more calories than cow's milk), eating avocado and banana (both ore calorific than cow's milk) etc.

they could not see that the issue was not her not having cow's milk - in theor view, if I had given her cow's milk she would suddenly have been gaining weight.

it's really odd

I think the argument goes seomthing like...

"most people give cows milk, therefore it must be a good thing, therefore you should do it"

does it make sense now?

and by similar logic...

"most people in the UK don't BF their toddlers, therefore it must be a bad thing, therefore you shouldn't do it"

I hope you now understand how this works

Thanks for that, I thought as much Why did my sensible HV have to leave? Now I am stuck with one of those HVs that I read about on mumsnet.

Funny how the diets of the Chinese 1.3 billion people, the Japanese, Koreans, all of South East Asia and historically speaking all of North And South America evolved without the milk of another mammal and they seemed to thrive without it.

Cow's milk is a Western European obsession.

foxytocin, that is exactly what I told dd2's paed.

he gave me a look, and wrote "mother insists on keeping child on a low fat diet" in her notes

i really let loose after that

"insists on keeping child on a low fat diet." spluttered my coffee for that.

wish I could have been a fly on the wall when you let loose.

Ignore her, that's ridiculous! Cow's milk is for baby cow's. My ds1 weaned from the breast at 17months and has never drank cow's milk, he's perfectly healthy. Ds2 is still bf but doesn't have and never will have cow's milk to supplement.

Maybe HV was just trying to imply that your dd may been cows milk in various forms for the benefit of getting calcium?

Maybe she wasn't implying that you not breastfeed, just that your daughter may benefit from some cows milk products, which are a good source of calcium, and many cows milk products are fortified with vitamin d to aid absorption.

Of course, there are many good sources of calcium, next time just advise your HV of those.

I don't often take much notice of what HV tell me, it seems their advice can be quite out of date, or just plain narrow minded.

Argh! And gah! And grrr! Why do people get paid to spout such nonsense?

Maybe she is a cow?

Sorry. Just being frivolous ... Obviously she is not. (Before anyone accuses me of HV-bashing.)