How much milk during weaning is ok?

[Duckfamily]

I have a thriving 15 month old, but freaking out a bit after reading an article about how important breastmilk/formula feeding is until 12 months old. I'm concerned that I might not have given him enough during the switch from milk to food. I reduced breastmilk and started mix feeding with formula from 7 months old, breastfeeding of a night, formula in the day, but I never really knew how much to give as I'd never really known how much breastmilk he was getting - I'd always fed on demand. He was eating lots of food and so naturally put weight on. I was advised by a health visitor to cut the formula and just breastfeed and give food which I did - so at that point he was only getting breastmilk of a night. At 10 months I switched the night breastfeeds to formula - approx 420mil split between two feeds. We went through two bottles of multivitamins around that time too. Am I being silly??

Please don't worry - they say babies should ideally have 18-20oz of milk per day until 1yo but in reality some babies just drop the milk very quickly and love their food! Some people on here would recommend cutting back on solids and giving your baby more milk if that's the case but I just think that's bonkers! Especially if we are talking a 10mo, not a 6mo! The whole idea of weaning is to get your baby OFF milk and onto food, with the ideal scenario being (in my opinion) no daytime milk at all by 12mo.

My first son naturally and of his own accord stopped drinking ANY formula at all at 10mo. I had always FF on demand and he just started refusing it once I started weaning. Gradually dropping his daytime bottles until he refused ALL for mail at 10mo.

Now I realise this is NOT ideal but it was my sons choice. I could not force feed him formula. The HV said some babies just don't like bottles f milk once they have tated food.

She told me to give him loads of milk, cream, butter, cheese and yoghurt in my cooking, and vitamin drops, which I did.

He is now a thriving 3yo with no ill effects.

Still doesn't drink milk.

Follow your baby's cues.

I've asked this before whenever someone says that they absolutely must have milk, but nobody has ever managed to answer - what exactly are they supposed to get from the milk that's not available from food?

Same as Bot - my DS1 started reducing his milk feeds when we started weaning, and didn't have any milk whatsoever from about 10 months. Still doesn't. He's fit and healthy.

DC2 is just 7 months and has stopped having any milk during daytime, just has evening and night feeds. I expect she will stop with milk entirely soon as well. She likes her food and eats a varied diet, so I don't personally think it's a good idea to stop with foods to get her back to taking more milk.

The thing about milk being better than food is energy density I believe (and calcium). Most people wean using a lot of fruit and veg which although is full of lots of goodies we want in our diet, just doesn't have the calories a baby needs and a baby's tummy is only tiny so needs to get as much bang for it's buck as possible. Of course it is possible to get the same nutrients with diet, but it means understanding what needs to be in the diet in the place of milk and the baby being amenable to those foods.
DD has loved her food from the off too, and was very keen to swap milk for food as soon as she worked out how to get it in her mouth reliably (we blw). She's always been a slim little thing so I found it a bit worrying, but just made sure she had plenty of dairy, nut butters, and avocado for fats, and green veg for added calcium over what she gets from dairy. She now regularly eats me under the table but is still slim; it turns out it's her build rather than any effort by me or her to starve her
I think the stress on milk being the main food source before one is in some part an average of when babies make the switch in the balance, but also to stop parents cutting out milk before the baby's ready rather than waiting for the baby to drop the milk naturally. I know plenty of mums who have got rid of bottles to try to make their still fairly young babies eat more.

Sure, if the baby will have milk then it's certainly better than weaning them on lettuce. Just that when I was struggling and asked advice about DC1, all I got was 'But he MUST have milk!! Food is just for fun!' - well, he didn't, and I didn't really feel like starving him to get him back to taking it. Especially as he was also a skinny kid.

With DC2, I'm not worried any more. She eats well, lots of fat yogurts and fromage frais, green veggies etc, so I'm sure she will be just fine despite her milk refusal. And still nicely following her 97th percentile.

Thank you for your advice everyone. Much appreciated.xx