how much milk?

[calcium]

My dd is now 9 months and is taking about 5oz of milk in the morning, 3-5oz at around 3pm and seems to be going off her bottle at bedtime. Should I now drop the afternoon feed give a diluted juice drink and then a bottle in the evening? Is 10 - 12 flozs enough? She isn't a skinny baby but is not interested in water or juice which I try giving her from a beaker unsuccessfully. She has the remainder of her morning milk in her cereal to make up 7 fl ozs. Any advice?

My health visitor quoted the magic figure of 20 oz a day at 1 year old, but this can include milk in cereals, fromage frais etc. It's also very approximate and providing your dd is eating well I don't see why you should worry if she doesn't take that much. My dd certainly didn't and has never suffered and I know other mums who say the same.
Out of interest, why do you want to introduce juice? I know a lot of people do but isn't it very bad for their teeth? What are the benefits?

Milk intake varies day to day for ds, but I suppose it's around the 20oz figure that judetheobscure mentioned. As she says though you can include any milk that is used in cooking in the total.
I wouldn't worry about your dd's intake as she sounds healthy enough, but you could give her more cheese sauce / rice puddings etc if you wanted.
Ds 'drinks' water during the day, but again this will range from 2 sips to a whole beaker full depending on how he feels.
Whenever there are guidelines about what kids should do I wish someone would tell the child!

Jude, I heard that it's good to introduce juice around 9 months because it is hydrative and helps with digestion. Can also help w/ constipation if that's a problem. I was told to give approx. 2-3 oz of juice per day. Calcium- you may want to introduce yoghurt for more dairy?

I have also been wondering about the milk thing recently. DD (16months) has 5oz in the morning (including that in her cereal) and 8oz in the evening. I sneak a bit of milk into her diet here and there if I can but it's a bit difficult as she does not like yoghurt or cheese like babybel etc. You can only present pasta with cheese sauce so often... Thank goodness for Philly though as this helps although she is nowhere near the magic 20oz. I don't think she is underwieght though so am trying not to worry. Suggestions?

calcium - sorry to hijack your thread...

Judetheobscure - I want to give her juice as she will NOT drink water at all on its own I have been trying for ages also we are bringing her up veggie and she needs orange juice to help absorb the iron in things. I do give her yoghurt and fromage frais and she has a bit of cheese. We dropped the mid afternoon bottle today and she drunk all her evening bottle so I think I shall continue with this, thanks for your help

I found it quite useful to start off with juice (we used apple juice diluted with water rather than squash) and then dilute it down till now ds only has water. It is important to introduce a fluid other than milk for times when little ones have stomach problems,as milk should be avoided during gastroenteritis and the like. We found this out to our detriment when our ds had ge aged 6months and we couldn't get anything but milk (which came back up) down him, and he ended up dehydrated. Once he was out of hospital (!) we determined to get him on a water based drink of any description.

If its the calcium you're worried about, you can buy orange juice which has added calcium. And Ready Brek contains lots of calcium - I have really relied on this for my ds who was allergic to milk, and tho he has got over his allergy he's not a milk drinker at all. He's also veggie, and I add Floradix (containing more calcium) and Minadex (containing iron) to his breakfast every morning. Until recently, I also had a calcium supplement (Calcium Santos) prescribed by the doctor, but I reckon he's now getting plenty from his breakfast, cheese, yoghurt, etc.