Weaning off of formula - non dairy milk

[pedropony76]

For those that have weaned their DC off of formula milk and have chosen to give them dairy free milk, which milk have you gone for and why? Also, how many oz/bottles of milk do they drink throughout the day?

DD is 13M and is still having three/four 6oz bottles of formula a day. She has three meals a day so I know it’s time so switch her milk and try to decrease the amount. I’m just not sure if I should offer soya/oat/rice milk. Would love to know what others do, thank you

My son has cow's milk protein allergy and the dietician recommended he drink Alpro Growing Up Drink from age 1 year. He was breastfed so went straight onto that and had a tommee tippee cup in the morning and in the evening. We were told definitely not to give him rice milk because of the levels of naturally occurring arsenic in it.

She also recommended oatly barista milk as an alternative. Both are packed with vitamins so they don't miss out on anything.

Rice milk isn’t suitable for under 5s. You need a milk which is forfeited with calcium and iodine. They need 350 mg of calcium which is about 3 toddler portions which can be made up of milk, cheese and/or yoghurt. You can also get fortified cereals and bread.

From 12 months you should also offer 2 or 3 snacks a day.

Just had a look at the Alpro growing up milk, that looks great thank you. I wasn’t sure about rice milk and I’m still yet to do my research (thought I’d just go to MN first haha) so thanks for the heads up!

@Flopisfatteningbingforchristmas there’s no issues with feeding and snacks, just wanted to ask regarding milk transitions

I only mentioned it, along with my other detailed post, because you talked about meals not snacks. You are welcome to time and advice.

We gave cow's milk, but in terms of getting her off the formula, we also started at 13 months, she was still having 4 large bottles of formula a day and eating very little solids. HV did the 1 yr review and told us to wean the milk amount down gradually to just twice a day. So we cut the mid morning bottle out completely and moved the mid afternoon one to straight after lunch. Did that for about a month. She did start eating more solids. Then we cut out the afternoon bottle. Did that for about a month. Then changed the morning and bed time bottles to cows milk, we had to do this changing the milk oz by oz each week, as she wouldn't drink cows milk at first. Once that was sorted we swapped the bottles for straw bottles too. We did all of this slower/later than most, but it worked for us.

We went with oat milk. There are pros and cons for all the options but oat milk worked well for us

Oatly Barista because it tastes really nice so it's now all we have in the house. I dislike the taste of soya milk.

Ripple milk is meant to be good but DS has a pea and dairy allergy (among others).

We use Alpro Growing Up. Our 2.5 year old daughter loves it. She has 500 ish ml a day.

Should add that hasn't changed much since she was 1. She has it 2-3 times a day but at times to not interfere with meal times.

I use Alpro Growing Up soya milk. He’s having 2 bottles a day - when waking up and before bed. Each around 250ml.

@SecondhandTable

Regarding this bit, ‘we had to do this changing the milk oz by oz each week, as she wouldn't drink cows milk at first.’ how did that work?

Do you mean you mixed formula and cow’s milk and would gradually decrease the formula amount each time?

Thank you for all of the comments. I was leaning more towards soya milk because of the taste but I’ll definitely keep oats milk in my mind in case she doesn’t like it

Because of eczema, we went the goat's milk route.

Source. www.healthline.com/health/baby/goat-milk-for-babies

Thank you for the link:)

I hope this doesn't upset anybody, it's not meant to, but a genuine question.

If a baby is 13m old a dn fully weaned then it should be getting nutririon from 'real' food. Why do we carry on giving milk as a major part of the diet?

And, although non-dairy milks have vitamins and minerals added they also have a lot of sugars, emulsifiers, thickners and preservatives.

@MagpiePi I can only speak for my DD and no one else’s DC.

Even tho DD has 3 meals a day, she’s a picky eater and doesn’t have a big appetite. Sometimes she’ll only have breakfast but not eat much of her lunch or dinner therefore she still needs a bit of milk to ensure she’s full up. I also think it’s a comfort thing. She’s used to drinking bottles so even if I wean her down to two bottles a day for now. That’s good for me.

Hopefully as time goes on and as she has less milk, she’ll get more hungrier so I can drop milk altogether. That’s my plan anyway🤷‍♀️

Yep. I can't remember exactly how large her bottles were at that age, but just for example if they were 6oz we would make 5oz formula mix with 1oz cows milk. Then after a week of that 4oz formula mixed with 2 Oz cows milk. And so on. She refused to drink the cows milk at first so we had to do that and eventually she got was on just cows milk without noticing hah.

@SecondhandTable that’s great thank you! I’m going to start that on Monday and just gradually decrease the formula and see how it goes

TBH I just did the simple way - the previous day he was having his usual formula and the next day I switched for the Alpro toddler milk and he couldn’t even care less what was in the bottle.