Transitioning to cows milk.. help!

[PlainJane28]

I know I should be asking my health visitor but she’s unapproachable and spends the entire time watching my tv and not engaging with me when we do see her.

I saw her when my daughter was 9 months and she said she could start having some whole milk in with her cereal so have been doing that a couple of times a week with her cereal but hasn’t been drinking loads.

I don’t have a mum or sister or anyone to ask as don’t have much family or friends hence why I am asking on here.

My daughter has just been diagnosed with a blood disorder which she has inherited from her father which means often a lack of iron in the body. Again I would ask the consultant about this but I’ve been trying to get hold of them about something else and still haven’t heard 2 weeks later..

Anyways so my daughter has 3 x formula bottles at the moment around 8oz per feed and has 3 meals a day. She’s on the right weight and height for her age so that’s all fine.

She turns 1 next week and would like to perhaps swap a bottle for cows milk? Can I do this how is the best way to go about it?

I was thinking of swapping the afternoon bottle for cows milk? I would like for her to remain on formula however for the other 2 bottles as I strongly feel she needs the iron supplements found in the stage 3 formula I’ve been looking at.

Just not sure on how to introduce it really and this is my first child. Many thanks

We just started mixing the cows milk in the the formula and adjusting the amounts until it was all cows milk.

So for an 8oz feed:
6oz formula, 2 oz cows milk
5oz formula, 3 oz cows milk and so on.

DS took it it really well and I didn't need to drag it out as long as I did. I've got friends who just completely switched it one day and their babies were fine.

My ds is the same and has 3 bottles a day, almost 1 years old. We've already swapped the afternoon bottle for cows milk. Just a straight swap, no gradual introduction. He loves it and now actually doesn't finish his formula bottles because he prefers cows milk. If that happens you may want to just use a vitamin instead of formula

I mixed as well, so for a 7oz bottle I would do 4oz formula and 3oz cows milk. we wnt on holiday and I ran out of formula so just switched over to cows milk. A few weeks early before her first birthday but shes been fine and hasn't really noticed a difference. I have however always given her bottle either room temp or cold, so shes no fuss taking it straight from the fridge either

I just gave him cow's milk instead of formula. He looked at me a bit strange for the first two days and just got on with it. Have to warm it up a bit though, fridge cold milk gets firmly rejected.

I suggest you ask your gp for a dietician referral or pay for a one off dietician appointment yourself due to the iron thing. My dd had a milk allergy and the dieticians were really helpful about how to ensure she got enough calcium etc.

I just swapped to see what she thought before having to faff with mixing.

Luckily she just took it straight away. I heated it up in the microwave and she was used to having warm milk.

I was more about getting rid of the actual bottles than just swapping to cows milk. So first I ditched the middle of day bottle and replaced with a sippy cup of cows milk. Then a week or so later did the same with the morning one. We actually kept the bedtime one for a bit longer as we were going away and wanted the continuity, but I mixed that with cows milk first, and then they just had regular cows milk in the bottle for a month or so and we’re completely done with bottles by about 15m.

I feel my kids fussed more about the bottle than the change in milk. That didn’t seem to bother them at all. If iron is an issue though you could stick with formula once a day