Follow on milk confusion

[Lana1234]

Hi, looking for a little advice re follow on milk. Currently using aptamil 1 for 6.5 DS. Weaning is going well he has rice in the morning then a little bit of fruit mid day and a little veg purée around dinner time. Still not sleeping through but he goes back down after a feed well so it’s not too bad. MIL just bought me a tub of follow on milk as she thinks it will fill him up more and get him sleeping through the night and it’ll give him more nutrients.

I’m a bit wary of using it though as I’ve read it can cause really bad constipation? Just wanted to know what everyone’s experiences of follow on milk were? What’s even the difference? Do I use it the same as first milk? Im a bit baffled by it as you can tell haha. Shall I give it a go and see how he gets on or stay well clear? Thanks.

Isn’t follow on only for 1 year plus? ie not necessary at all as they can have cows milk?

Follow on milk is not necessary. It allows formula companies to market their brand. Something they cant do with 1st milk. Its a con. The HV advise me not to switch.

From NHS site

Also 1st milk is more tightly regulated so I'd rather stick with that as i know that no vital vitamins wiould be omitted. Fill him up on more solids during day perhaps.

It has the same calories as first milk so I doubt it would make much difference. It has more iron which can cause constipation. I only switched to it around 9 months as it was cheaper not because of spurious claims about extra nutrients. First milk is fine for 12 months at which point you can switch to cows milk. You would just give it in the same amounts as the current milk

My HV advised me not to switch to follow on as it's got the same nutrients as the 1st milk you've been using. It's used for marketing. Just stick to what your using and when your LO is 1 they can go onto cows milk

It might be a marketing ploy but if cost is an issue then it does tend to be cheaper and you can get offers/deals on it

It's the same and has the same nutrients.. I compared them when my most precious first born was 5 months and 29 days old!!

As pp says, it's marketing. They can't advertise newborn formula but they can market follow on milk.

The only difference (besides the marketing) is that most follow on milks are more casein based rather than whey based. It’s just a different milk protein. Sometimes that can cause constipation. We tried it on a whim with my first and found it actually sorted her constipation (which she’d had since birth), so we carried on using it. If everything is going well though, there’s no real benefit to using it. In terms of calories and nutrients, it’s the same.

Is follow on milk casein based? I know hungry milk is but not entirely sure with follow on. Also for a pp, follow on milk is suitable from 6 months and then you can get toddler milk from 1 year (unnecessary as you can use cows milk)

It’s the same but you can get deals on it/collect advantage points/clubcard points etc which you can’t with first milk so we did switch and it made no difference to DD.
It isn’t any thicker and I spent a long time looking at the ingredients and comparing to first milk and there is minimal difference