Did anyone else see the piece in BBC news about follow on milk?

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here

It was hidden away at the bottom this morning and I thought it was very interesting. Lots of common sense in the ruling.

Stretch, he may or may not want a turn

I have no idea if he'll be able to get anything, sorry - will be fine to let him try though. Babies do come back to the breast, though I have not heard of one doing so after four months without a lot of help and opportunity and it's always been younger ones that I can remember.

But if you're fine about it, just see what happens

Thanks! And HoochieMomma!!!

I was told follow on is identical to newborn formula. Only they can't advertise newborn, so they call it something else, put it in another design, and voila. Telly adverts a go-go.

The only good thing about this is that Hipp pre-made Growing Up milk is 92 pence, whereas the younger version is £1.15. I checked the nutrition info and they are indeed the same, so it saves me £££.

another vote here for ranting at the telly when these ridiculous adverts come on. I especially hate the immunofortis one. I actually quite like the giggling babies in the advert for the other one but hate the message they give out.

stretch, he may be able to. i have an acquaintance with a toddler who she weaned around 16 mos term (he was 10 wks prem). After the baby arrived he took to breastfeeding again, i'd say around 2 mo after stopping. this child has now been diagnosed with a few special needs.

Follow on is definitely not the same as newborn formula and it is not suitable for newborns ...where have you heard that, Qally?

The iron content in follow on is higher and the protein content is almost double, as is the sodium content.

Manufacturers do advertise follow on as a way of 'proxy' ads for newborn formula - the branding and packaging is very similar. It is a serious concern that they do this, because it is often unclear that the product is not suitable for newborns. Qally's misunderstanding is an example of this

I'd often wondered about the difference between the stage 1 and 3 formulas and think the confusion is just evidence of the confusion that most women who end up ff, for whatever reason, face.

I tried and tried to bf DD1 and hit crisis point in the middle of the night. DH went out and knowing absolutely nothing (as we'd been convinced of the 'don't entertain the thought of ff and you're more likely to succeed with bf' school of thought). He grabbed C&G because of the line on the box that was something like 'closest yet to breastmilk'. Pure marketing but it worked because we hadn't been properly informed.

Most worryingly, because we knew nothing about formula, when that box ran out, he grabbed another box, which turned out to be Aptamil follow-on. I mentioned it the HV who just said that changing brands sometimes constipated the baby, Nothing to do with the follow-on milk being unsuitable. She even said to stick to it if DD1 (4 or 5 weeks at this stage) liked it. (Thankfully she didn't and we went back to C&G)

I really tried to be properly informed when expecting DD2 and found no proper info, as tiktok says. In the end, I did a bit of a search on here and went for Aptamil. As it was, DD2 took to bf like a dream and we've only just stopped, a few weeks before her first birthday.

Oh yes Tiktock. I know a couple of mothers that were eager to get their baby onto to the growing up milk. At about 3 1/2 months!!

Firstly because they liked the idea that their child was 'more advanced' and needed the growing up milk as the other wasn't 'good enough' for their child, and also becasue it was cheaper!

No amount of explaining would sway them, and these are well educated and intelligent women!

Wow, seriously? That's very disturbing - I was told that by a midwife!

God, I'm really shaken by that - thank the Lord DS is 9 months and didn't get formula till 8. Because too much sodium....

Interesting that several people on here think that FF is 'taboo'. In my experience, it has been anything but. DD will be 2 next month and is still b/f. But in the early months with her I used to have all sorts of people telling me that I 'had to get her used to the bottle' and 'she must have formula', etc. When DD was about 3 months old I really struggled with b/f and my HV did give me advice on FF, but actually she was really good and gently convinced me to continue to b/f.

I personally think it is far more of a taboo to 'extend' b/fing beyond a year. I really don't bother telling anyone now as I know I will get the old 'bitty' comments

Imo, it is not necessary to adverise formula. We can all see it in the supermarket aisles and we have far more access to information (via the internet) than we have ever done before, enabling us to make informed decisions based on fact, not fiction.

To an extent I think it depends where you live. In many places formula must be the norm, but it isn't in my area of my town, which is home to Baby Milk Action. I've never had comments from other mothers of babies - universally friendly - but when getting a bottle out I've had snide comments on two occasions. It does happen.

Having said that, most of my family ended up pretty keen to get me to stop expressing and on to formula for DS, although to be fair they knew I hated expressing and their concerns were for me. If bf had been successful they'd have been very positive about that.

Tiktok, can I ask if follow on is substantially different to growing up milk? I use HIPP because I wanted to avoid pro-biotics, and they don't make pre-prepared infant formula, but do make two varieties of older baby milk. I am using growing up, which is meant for 10 months onwards, as they were cheaper, the packaging info on nutrition looks identical, and I thought if they were all the same, they were all the same... and now I'm worrying that I should be using follow on instead. He's eating loads of solid food now, but still has 3 or 4 bottles in the day and 2 through the night. I'm a bit panicky about the amount of sodium he may have had if they keep increasing that with age.

Okay, just back from the supermarket, and they do indeed add staggered amounts of extra protein, salt and iron, so Growing Up
is more than Follow On. Thank you so much for saying - poor little chap.
Tbh expressing is in one significant way easier than buying formula - stays sterile longer, and can be taken out and about with far less worry! And that's even without the benefits in terms of his and my health.

As to the other points on this thread - my understanding is that all formulas have to meet statutory requirements, so newborn milks are all pretty similar, no? So the actual brand doesn't matter very much? Or is that wrong? I chose HIPP purely because they don't add pro-biotics, and as they have no proven benefit I don't really want them in his diet unless they are there via naturally live yoghurt. But that's not exactly a scientific belief, just my own feeling. Advertising milk is pointless, it doesn't inform and in many cases actively misleads.

Qally, if your baby is over 12 months you can put aside all the growing up / follow on stuff and give him whole milk. despite 'growing up' being cheaper than follow on as you or someone else said earlier, they are both extremely expensive when compared to organic whole milk.

These things are all big cons the way they are packaged and marketed. The formula companies can't wait to get your baby off breastfeeding but then are keen to keep you feeding them formula in the shape or 'growing up milk' 'for 1yr+'.

_

Sooo wimmen are ridiculed for breastfeeding past one year on the one hand but then encouraged/guilt tripped into buying toddler milk to 'keep them healthy and growing.

Who else can smell something?????

As far as can be seen, yes, Qally, newborn formulas differ very little from each other. The added prebiotics (not probiotics - no formula commercially available has probiotics as far as I know) are (IMO) a marketing thing, with little evidence that they make formula 'better' www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab006474.html. Different formulations of formula have different formulations of prebiotics, all claiming to be 'better' or 'closest to breastmilk'.

Some parents, like you, prefer to avoid prebiotics in formula. They are a synthetic product, developed from algae
www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Health-condition-categories/Maternal-infant-health/Infant-formula-omega -3-fortification-increases-says-Martek.

I try and feed mine a diet that is nutritionally complete but short of force feeding the food into, their mouths there is no guarantee that they will get an adequate iron intake. As there is also a family history of inability to absorb iron then I do feed them follow on milk and will continue to do so.

So is this something else to bash ff mothers over the head with? (obviously we're all incompetent.)

It's not about 'bashing' women who FF. And I don't see anyone calling them 'incompetent' either. The companies that make misleading/untrue claims are where my ire is directed, not at mothers who have no other unbiased source of information about the products.

The thing about iron is that the higher levels in follow-on milk are not very bio-available and so are poorly absorbed anyway. If there is a family history of poor iron absorption I'd think about getting a specialised medical opinion on the best ways to get iron into them. Most of the iron in formula is excreted unused. I know that feeding iron-rich foods with vitamin C rich foods can increase absorption, if thats any help?

yes I do all that AA. I have to confess I got to the end of the first page of thread and posted not realising there were 3 more pages and the arguments moved on. (oops!) I think iron in general is mostly excreted unused but it is very difficult to get toddlers to eat as much as I would like to keep the levels right. Hence using follow on milk as a back up.

I do find it very difficult to get reliable information on formula feeds and the differences between them if any. The information out there and easily accessible is either put out by the manufacturers and is little more than promotional blurb, or, comes from sources that claim to give information about ff but is actually quite anti ff.

Here's a tip, nellie: before posting a sniffy, chippy post, read the whole discussion, eh?

No one thinks anyone is 'incompetent' and no one is bashing anyone.

If a particular toddler is going through a very fussy, faddy, under-eating phase, then of course it can be a good idea to think specifically of the iron levels in his diet. Using a follow on milk as a back up is an option to deal with this very specific problem.

Discussing the whole issue becomes harder if people start taking umbrage at it

Thanks Tiktok - that's what I was told, pretty much. I think it's me that misunderstood, not the midwife who was wrong - the conversation was a while ago now, she was trying to support me in bf, and she was saying how all formulas are similar and they get round that by misleading advertising - probably went on to say that the follow on thing is nonsense and infant formula is fine for older babies, it's a con to wriggle round the advertising bans. That isn't actually the same as saying they're literally the same, which is how I heard it. I've bought him the Follow On now, and will give him the Growing Up for his last couple of months on formula. Thank God he's been drinking stacks of water the last month or so and eating a lot; hopefully that will mean the extra sodium/

Prebiotics? God, I have no clue what those even are - I assumed probiotics, given similar claims are made with Yakult etc (also nonsense, apparently). I do want to avoid additives that have no proven value, though really the lack of any premade infant HIPP is a disadvantage that could well have put me off if I'd needed it earlier. I'm twitchy about how unsterile powder is.

Pseudoname, bless you for the concern, but DS is only 9 months and has only been having solids since 7 months - refused totally before. For a range of reasons I won't bore you with I failed to bf and had to express his feeds, and after almost 8 months of doing so exclusively and almost 9 mixed I just couldn't face any more. So I am using formula until he's 1 - after that I will gladly move to food and cow's milk! Expensively pointless after that stage, really.

I wish people weren't so fractious over all this. Concern about misleading advertising of formula is concern for mothers who are forced to or choose to ff, as well as those who may decide against bf because they think it's as good. Bf is free, convenient and best for mother and baby, and wanting to encourage it isn't nasty or anti-women. Nor is trying to stop people being ripped off by lies from advertisers - if formulas are all pretty identical, then surely price is the main and best factor? And I needed help and info on all this stuff, and I can't be alone there.

Gah, I just wish people could fight over something worth the effort.

hadn't thought of that tik tok - obviously I'm an incompetent mnetter!

So where would we ideally get the information in an easy to understand, emotional mummy format, as to which formula contains what? We can't trust the health professionals as they are all writing their notes on Aptamil branded notepads, using SMA branded pens . We can't trust the advertisements because they are all bollocks. The cartons may as well be written in Serbo-Croat.

That sounds really sarcastic btw and it's not meant to be, it's a genuine question. I'm an idiot, I used Aptamil because it looked more serious and because that's what dd was given in the hospital. And even more idiotically, despite being more au fait with the marketing etc, I still continued to buy it when I wanted the odd carton for travelling, even though I now know there's not much difference.

I don't want to get drawn into the ins and outs because it is very upsetting but having failed so miserably to bf dd, I am, if I'm honest, prepared to fail again. In this case, what help is there out there for new mothers who are tired, emotional, generally feeling crap about bf and need to give their child something?

the problem is that the doh and who are convinced that if they tell mothers nothing about ff that this will encourage mothers to bf. It is a double whammy effect because they then neglect to put in meaningful resources to support mothers trying to breastfeed. (well community mw said that they have a dvd to show you how to bf but actually I needed someone available to talk to at 2am)

Then the nhs encourages mothers to feel guilty over their choice of feeding method. Hence it becomes such an emotive subject not helped when there is criticism (frequently valid) of formula companies and people start making ignorant comments about feeding kids fruit shoot equivalents.

Ime I can find more info on drugs,vaccinations and food in general than I can find on the claims made by infant feed manufacturers.

Nellie - what is it you want to know about formula feeding that you feel the WHO and the nhs are hiding from you?

Excellent question, MadEyeballs.

In my perfect world, all advertising and marketing (the branded notepads and so on) would be stopped. Manufacturers would be compelled to share their ingredients and research into them with an independent research-savvy body, who would assess all currently available formulas and publish their findings, which could be then made available to consumers in an easy to read form.

Suspected side effects of formulas (like Brand X 'causes constipation' and Brand Y 'often makes babies colicky'), confirmed by midwives and health visitors (who would need extra training), would be reported (just like doctors 'yellow carding' a drug). The information that results would be part of the independent research body's reports.

At the moment, there is no comprehensive assessment and comparison of UK infant formulas. Mothers (and often HCPs) are confused about the different formulations of 'stage 1' , 'stage 2' etc, 'hungry baby' 'growing up' blah blah blah, not to mention 'Good Night Milk' and 'Toddler milk'. Any manufacturer making claims which are not backed up by solid research should be made to withdraw all product off the shelves - leaving some parents without their usual brand, but they can be reassured by the truth, that for most babies, it really does not make any difference to their health if they have the pack with the bunnies on or the one with the polar bear on.

The nearest independent factsheet about the differences between formulas is NCT's:

www.nct.org.uk/info-centre/how-do-i/view-43