Transition from formula to cows milk - advice needed!

[BexusSugarush]

My dd is almost 1 year old now and we're starting to look into moving from Cow and Gate 6-12 months Follow On Milk, to normal cows milk, but I have a few questions!

1. Do we go straight to cows milk that you'd put into tea, or is there a specific type for babies we should use first?

1. Do we cold turkey switch or introduce it slowly into her diet?

1. She has a bottle in the morning and one before bed, do we keep on with that using cows milk or get her out of the morning and bed drinks?

1. She isn't very good at drinking from a cup yet; do we give the cows milk in her usual bottle?

Any other advice or tips would be most welcome! x

1. Do we go straight to cows milk that you'd put into tea, or is there a specific type for babies we should use first?

You can use whole milk from 12 months old, no need for anything else. There's no need at all for any of the toddler milks that are available, they're expensive and unnecessary.

1. Do we cold turkey switch or introduce it slowly into her diet?

It's up to you. As she's been on formula, she can obviously tolerate cows milk, so you could just swap and see how she takes it.

1. She has a bottle in the morning and one before bed, do we keep on with that using cows milk or get her out of the morning and bed drinks?

You should stop using bottles from 12 months, so you could swap to a sippy cup instead. They only need about 350ml of cows milk a day to get their daily calcium requirements.

1. She isn't very good at drinking from a cup yet; do we give the cows milk in her usual bottle?

You should stop using bottles from 12 months so I would persevere with the sippy cup.

You can still use a bottle, My DD still has a night time bottle at 18 months, she won't take it from a sippy cup no matter what we do. Drinking out of a bottle once or twice a day in my mind is not much of an issue, the dummy is more of an issue for us as far as teeth go, and we are trying to wean her off of those at the moment. I'm sorry, but the whole you must stop using bottles at 12 months I think is a little overboard, you need to do what you feel is right for you and your toddler regarding the bottle, you can wean off slowly if you want to.

I mixed the cows milk with formula half and half for a week before going full onto cows

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/drinks-and-cups-children.aspx#

I just wanted to mention that what I said is the standard NHS advice.

Just came on to say everything SpeakNoWords has said. Ditch the bottles!

I just switched both of mine directly to cows milk at around 12 months, no special milk, just full fat stuff . I tried both with sippy cups and both rejected them so we stuck with bottles- I see no problem with them. Both had dropped their morning milk by a year old so it was just bedtime.

Speaknowords I know its NHS advice, It just doesn't work that way for everyone :) and I think sometimes things can be a little too black and white, it's just my opinion though :)

Speaknowords I know its NHS advice, It just doesn't work that way for everyone :) and I think sometimes things can be a little too black and white, it's just my opinion though :)

She will need to have full fat (blue topped) milk.

Thank you all for your advice.

Heirhelp that makes alot of sense, thank you.

To those arguing over bottle or no bottle, while I had read you should ditch the bottle at 12 months, I also read that it's because people allow their baby to bottle-feed themselves and fall asleep with milk in their mouths, which is the real concern. While we will try to ditch the bottle, we ended up bottle feeding and cosleeping because our dd is a difficult one, so I foresee problems switching to cup haha

As I understand it op the are a few reasons why bottles aren't recommended for over ones. One is their teeth, as you say their hey shouldn't be left in a cot with a full bottle- not really relevant to us as they both have their milk and then get their teeth brushed before bed. Anaemia is another concern, but this seems to be regarding dc who have lots of bottles of milk instead of food. Another is just the same issues as with dummies, speech and teeth alignment- not an issue as they only have the bottle for maybe 5 minutes a day. We decided that it wasn't a battle worth fighting so we waited until 18 months with ds and dd still has one now at 17 months. It's a nightmare getting any milk at all into dd and she won't have it at all fro m a cup so she might have a bottle for a while yet.

At around 12 months DS was having 2 bottles of formula a day. Morning and bed and then whole milk in a cup with meals.

First I swapped the morning bottle for a cup of milk but kept the bedtime formula. No problem. Then after a week or so I tried to get rid of his bedtime bottle but he made so much fuss that we gave up. I swopped it to whole milk and we kept the bottle til 15 months (worked as we also went on holiday, visited family etc so the bottle was more convenient and no trouble to just have one bottle per day and teeth afterwards). At 15 months he didn't seem to mind at all ditching the bottle and was a little bit unsettled for one night.

So my point is if they're not ready fully at 12 months it's not a problem but I would certainly start the process. Plus it's so nice to be rid of formula!

My DD is two next month and she still gets a bottle before bed. Her teeth are brushed after it.

She loves her bottle. I don't see the harm.

Good healthy varied diet full fat milk easy I would imagine your child has had milk anyhow in custard or yoghurt ice cream just switch to full fat I'd go organic personally but up to you cups in the day and a bottle for last feed before bed