What kind of milk are you giving your DC's if they're under 5?

[Sycamoretree]

Mine are still on ye olde full fat organic, and they are 3.9 and 20 months.

I was thinking it might be time to move them to semi-skimmed, which they will both happily drink.

Not sure why I felt the need to go full fat. I guess it was whilst milk was still a big part of their diet. They now just have milk with cereal at breakfast and a cup before bed at night.

Any health experts out there care to give me an informed opinion? Do they really need the extra calories that full fat provides any more? They eat pretty well on the whole.

actually the healthy start website say whole or semi up til 5; most places now say after 2 you shoulod switch to semi

cqan't do links but if you google milk children it brings an article from daily mail about avoiding full fat after the age of 2 cos of atherosclerosis etc

have been meaning to ask on msmnet why i can't copya nd paste and after tring again to post the web address i think i better!

Thank you for trying!

Really interesting thread. I do wonder why full fat milk is so terrible. As people said above, it is only 4% fat! You see cakes etc being marketed as low fat when they are 95% fat free. I'd imagine a glass of full fat milk is a lot more nutritious than a low-fat cake and not full of sugar either or a load of weird ingredients you can't pronounce. Personally, I plan to keep my daughter on full-fat milk for the higher vitamin content unless she shows any signs of becoming fat. Since she is now 2.8 and about 13kg, I don't think I need worry too much in the near future!

Also, full-fat milk just tastes better, even in coffee or whatever. Why would you want to swap to something that's just plain not as nice? I want my daughter to enjoy her milk.

I think the childhood obesity/artery hardening thing is almost certainly down to a poor diet in terms of excessive sugar and salt, lack of proper home-cooked foods etc, personally. And just plain eating too much, too.

i give my 4 year old semi and have done since she was 3 but only cos if i buy fll fat it goes off, as i can't stnad the stuff; it took me years to get used to semi as i like completely skimmed, don't know how anyone can drink full fat stuff, its gross!

I would have given her semi from 2 if i'd known then that they no longer recommended full fat til 5.

I switched from full fat to semi skimmed when ds was 3. I was fed up with buying two different types of milk and knew that guide lines said it was okay from age 2.

I suspect the reason why they recommend stopping fullfat milk is because they think people are dumb. If they say "fullfat milk is fine", then people will think that actually fullfat anything is fine, because people don't have the wit to notice that "fullfat" can mean anything from 4% fat in the case of milk to nearly-all-fat for butter or cheese.

It's like lots of other advice to never do x or y, when actually the old-fashioned "moderation in all things" is what is needed, because they don't trust people to have enough knowledge or understanding to know what moderation is.

Semi-skimmed for DD (4.6). Children shouldn't drink skimmed milk as they need the fat for their growth and brain development.

Mine are on full fat. DD is 7 and is under the 9th centile for skinnyness and DS is only 2.9. I don't drink milk and DH doesn't mind what he has so will probably keep them on full fat permanently.

Surely we should be cutting out the fat in the crisps, chips, Greggs and Dunkin Donuts, not the so-called "full-fat" milk which is NOT FULL OF FAT!!!!

Its full of vitamins and calcium.

full milk.

I read a leaflet while waiting to see my GP last week which advised switching to semi-skimmed at age 2, which I have done with my 2.5 year old now. He also has breastmilk. If I could remember what the leaflet was called I'd link but it did contain other advice about building in exercise time for toddlers too.

My DD (23 months) doesn't drink milk at all - she doesn't like it.

She has full fat yogurts though. And full fat cheese.

My twin chrages (17 months) have whole goat's milk, it's not as creamy as whole cow's milk. They both drink about 300-350mls a day with extra in cereal and cooking.

Twin 1's excema has pretty much cleared up after 3 weeks on goat's milk, have even stopped using bath oil and cream on him. In a couple of weeks we will go back to mild bubble bath!

It tastes like cow's milk to me, I don't drink a lot of milk but tastes fine.

Only problem we have, is that we cannot buy organic goat's milk. One "local" farm will deliver organic goats milk at £2.29 a PINT with a delivery price of £7!!! We get through 14+ pints a week, it's not pasturised so we would need 3 deliveries a week which would cost us £53 a week! For milk!! I don't think so! And that would just be for the children's milk!

just done a nutrition course and semi skim is fine after age 2, in fact semi has more calcium etc than full fatwhich they only need when on mainly milk diet.

Stopped buying full fat about 6 m onths ago (DS is 4). Couldn't be faffed with buying two lots of milk anymore, so he has semi skim med instead now. He eats plenty of dairy - lots of cheese and yoghurt - so not fussed.

full fat from the shop - the rest of us have it sraight from the cow - we live on a farm!

We all have full fat milk here (DS 5 and DD 3).