semi-skimmed milk for 17m old?

[imoscarsmum]

DD is 17m and really not keen on full-fat milk. She will have it on breakfast but reluctantly. She will however drink semi-skimmed and seems to prefer the taste.

Will it really harm her growth/development to have semi-skimmed milk all the time? I would prefer she had whole milk but to me, some semi-skimmed seems better than very little whole.

Thoughts?

my health visitor said full fat up until age 2 so 17m not that far off!

once my dd1 gave up her bottle at around 18m she wouldn't drink milk again so I reckon if you can get her to have semi skimmed its better than nothing.

I don't blame her anyway full fat milk tastes horrid she just obviously has good taste!

I know all the guidelines say minimum 2 years to drop the full fat, and 5 years before they can have skimmed, but tbh I think so much of it is common sense. If your DD won't drink full fat then far better she has semi-skimmed milk than no milk at all, IMHO.

And you can always give her full fat dairy items such as yogurts and cheeses if you're concerned (assuming she'll eat them).

I have to confess that from when my children were about 4, 3 & 2 I gave up buying anything other than skimmed milk because I was so tired of managing the stock control of several different sorts of milk! I figured that they have a balanced and varied diet, so it wasn't going to be the end of the world.

and full fat is only 4% fat, so imo semi skimmed is not really worse.

my ds is 19mo, mostly bf but when he asks for milk in a cup or if i am out at bedtime he has what we have in the fridge which is usually 1% so.....

I think it's fine. There are other sources of fat and children who are vegan/lactose intolerant/allergic to dairy have to go without milk yet usually manage to thrive.

I think there's too much emphasis on milk, so long as the child gets sufficient fat in their diet from various sources they'll be fine.

Thanks everyone. As usual, lots of reasurance here - gives me confidence! I make sure she has plenty of other fatty foods like cheese, yoghurt, avocado, humous, fry ups only joking!