When to give Cows' Milk?

[Helento]

Does anyone have any views about giving a 10-month-old cows’ milk? As I understand it, the only “issue” is that it does not contain enough iron and it is for that reason that it should not be given as the main milk drink before a baby reaches a year old. Sadly, I cannot find anything to suggest that it could be given as an “occasional” drink in the same way as, eg, juice.

My daughter has been a nightmare to get to drink anything other than breast milk. I am still breast-feeding morning and evening and she has formula during the day whilst I am at work. Unfortunately, whilst she has now taken to a spout quite well (I never did get her to take a teat), we are lucky if she will drink as much as 6oz during the day. She will drink water, but never much and not with relish. I doubt she’s getting much even breast-feeding because she’s so nosy and more interested in what’s going on around her.

Well, this evening, she was thirsty. I had not put her water in the fridge this morning so I didn’t have anything cool enough to give her straight away. I gave her some cows’ milk in a beaker. She loved it; she drank it with more enthusiasm than I have ever seen her drink anything. I have been stressing out ever since that I have “done wrong”, but surely it’s alright if she’s getting all the relevant nutrients in her diet otherwise and it must be better than juice … isn’t it … ??

i think the danger of triggering a dairy allergy might be an issue under a year, but at 10 months she's slmost there anyway.

have you tried her with formula or progress (?) in a cup? they are fortified and might make you feel better...but if she likes milk best i really wouldn't think it matters. and does she have yogurt yet?

once she is on proper mixed feeding, you should think of milk as a food rather than a drink. if she only drank milk she would probably either eat less solids or get overweight. water or well-diluted juice are actually better drinks.

do get whole milk though. they shouldn't have semi-skimmed under the age of - i think it's 5? and you might feel happier if you get organic milk.

Message withdrawn

Hello, I am new to mumsnet. I had a similar problem with my now 8 year old as by 10 months she was not having much milk. I did give her cows milk to boost her intake as she also started to refuse breastmilk. She is fine and has no allergies. It does have to be full fat though.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I can't believe it's over a week since I last logged on an posted the message! I think the answer is to give her real milk as an "occasional" drink until she reaches a year old. We've no history of allergies etc, and she does seem to prefer it to formula. I am still breast-feeding morning and evening and she gets formula during the day - I was rather taken aback by how sweet the stuff is, though, but my nearly-4-year-old doesn't seem to have developed a sweet tooth as a result, so fingers crossed ...

Hello - wanted to resurrect this rather old thread as I am debating when I can give DS cow's milk.

I will be returning to work when he is 12 months for a couple of full days a week and want him to drink cow's millk at the childminders. He is currently BF and as I will be taking a few weeks to settle him in, I guess he will be needing a drink of milk from around 10/11 months.

My plan was always to avoid formula (can't explain why really, striving to be the perfect mother?!... dislike of the plastic, I don't know) but the HV is very anti my giving him cow's milk before 12 months. As we have no history of asthma, etc. and as he is a solid boy and good eater would 6 weeks off 12 months really be such an issue?

Formula is the right balance of fat, carboyhydrates & protein -- as well as being iron fortified; cow's milk is none of these things. Giving cow's milk to children under 1yo is implicated in anemic toddlers; and iron anemia limits brain growth in toddlers. I really think formula is the healthiest choice before 12 months. Can you not express breast milk? You can give the formula in a ceramic mug, if that gets around your dislike of plastic!

I started giving cow's milk in a cup to ds at about 10 months - mainly because he seemed happier to drink cow's milk than formula from a cup and I wanted to start phasing out his bottles. He was still getting formula in his bottles and was a very good eater, so I wasn't too worred about him not getting enough iron or vitamins.

Personally I don't think any of these cut-off points are absolute - how can they be, babies vary so much? As far as I'm aware, the main concern re cows milk is the lack of iron - but then I think this is a bit of an issue for breast milk too. I think if you are particularly careful to make sure your baby has lots of iron rich foods I can't see a problem.

I'm with Elliot on this one, I agree that how does the baby 'magically' know it's 12 months & then it is OK to give cow's milk? If your child is healthy & not underweight & has a good varied diet, I can't believe it could cause a serious problem. After all, how did babies manage years ago before formula, if they weren't breast-fed?

I think a lot of these 'rules' are guidelines that HVs etc have to give out to 'cover' themselves.

FWIW, I'm with zebra.

DD started on cows milk around 10 or 11 months. She has always had a very varied diet with lots of iron rich vegetables, meat, fish etc.

Personally i wouldn't stress to much about it. If her diet was deficient in some way it may be different. If she likes it a couple of months wont' hurt IMO.

Interestingly re allergies my dd's eczema cleared a lot when she was fully on cow and not on formula. Probably just coincidence though.

I'm with zebra & droile. 1 in 5 children don't get enough iron in their diet, with 7% of 1-2 year olds being iron deficient to the extent it has a damaging effect on their learning.

Unless you've got a child who loves spinach, watercress etc or red meat or who happily takes supplements (mine does none of the above), I think formula is an excellent way of getting enough iron in their diet (follow on formulas are more iron rich I recently discovered thanks to mumsnet...). DD (16 months) isn't keen on moving over to cows milk so I suspect she'll be on formula still for a few more months.

I can't personally see why you're happy with cows milk but not formula? But I'm sure someone will enlighten me...

I was under the impression that whilst formula milk is fortified with iron, a lot of this is not digested by the child and passes straight through. I've seen lots of mentions of this but can't for the life of me remember where! It may even have been on Mumsnet somewhere...

Elliot: breast milk, whilst relatively low in iron, has it in a form which is readily absorbed by the child so the amount they get is actually higher than something like iron enriched formula. At least that's what I was told or read or something - it's one of those snippets of information that's stuck with me.

Sashaboo, I know what you mean about the formula! With DS1, in my mind giving him formula was akin to giving him poison. Completely irrational and something I recovered from. I think I'd got partly brainwashed by all the Breast is Best stuff and come away with the idea that formula was unnatural and the food of the devil. Ridiculous, I know! I bf DS1 for 12 months and used follow on milk to milk his cereal from 10 months or so and then as a drink from 12 months - 2 years.

I started my DS's on cows milk at 9 months, they just would not drink formula, absolutely hated it.
I got quite worried because I just could not get any milk down them, until I tried cows milk, which they loved !!!!
I was just pleased they were drinking any milk at all !!

Phillipat - I used cow's milk for DS from about 10 months because it was easier to get (ie: delivered to your door each morning!!), cheaper & less hassle to buy if you live in the sticks like we do!

I must be lucky in that my DS adores spinach - in fact has it with nearly every meal!!

soupdragon, I knew someone would leap on that breastmilk comment It wasn't ever relevant to me at that stage, so I don't claim to know all the facts.

Sure, if my baby didn't eat well I would have definitely kept goign with formula even beyond 12 months. But I'm pretty confident that ds is one of the 80% who will be getting enough iron.
I think all these guidelines are just that - you need to know what they are, and understand the reason, but they need to be interpreted with the knowledge you have of your own child.

Thanks for everyone's advice. I'm not anti-formula as such (everyone's entitled to feed their baby how they like IMO and I know the whole 'breast is best' thing makes a lot of women feel rubbish), it's just that I was planning to bypass the whole measuring, mixing, sterilising, bottles, different sized teats, bit. I've read that babies over a year need a pint of milk a day so it seemed to make sense to start a new pint every day and then I'd know how much he was having.

I've found over the last few months that one can be a bit bulldozed by the nicest, well-meaning HVs. I can't believe that the occasional drink of cow's milk, 6 weeks prior to turning 1 will result in DS being one of phillipat's quoted 7%
of children. Isn't that just another unnecessary scary statistic for us to worry over?

Sashaboo - giving a baby who is 6 weeks short of 12 months is not going to cause any problems at all, especially if they are still getting breast/formula milk. Well done you for getting to this stage in the first place

Thanks Mears - I guess I was after some reassurance. I feel pretty pleased (please don't read 'smug' ) with myself too, especially after some nights in the early days when DH was sleeping and I was staring at this small baby wondering whether BF was really such a fab idea. Will go for the odd drink of cows milk and make sure DS has lots of iron in his diet. I'll probably find he thinks milk is revolting and insist on having BM...!

Elliot, which bit would be leapt on? A spot of internet research comes up with the statistic that 50 to 75 percent of the iron in breastmilk is absorbed by the baby. With formula, as little as four percent of the iron is absorbed into baby's bloodstream. It is recommended that when weaning you use an iron fortified cereal and iron rich foods though.

(I'm curious, that wasn't meant to sound huffy in any way! )

Huffyness? From a dragon? Surely you mean puffy, LOL

soupdragon, no offence was taken at all! Just when I was typing it (the bit about there possibly being a problem with iron levels in breastmilk) I remembered there had been discussion about that issue (but couldn't remember the details as it wasn't relevant to me) and the thought went through my head - 'someone is going to pick this up and correct me..... ' Which they did! Thats all. OK??

Ah - as it happens I misread your post anyway! I thought it said "I knew someone WHO would leap on that breastmilk comment" I added a word in of my own when reading it! I was curious to know why someone would leap on it, thinking it was what I said that was going to be leapt on....

One day I'll learn to read. And one day I'll learn to type too - the number of typos I've just had to correct in this post is embarrassing!

Puffing off...