Mike transition confusion..

[WanaBeMillionaire]

We are coming up to babys 1st birthday and with it trying to understand how to make the transition from formula to cows milk..

Our weaning journey hasn't been smooth.Due to a long few weeks of illness at 8 months, our reluctance to really do BLW after a scary incident at 6 months and babys rejection of spoon feeding/ happy to throw it all on the floor instead were stuck on 4 7oz bottles a day still of formula with no sign of natural reductions. we are now going full BLW and she is trying foods but it's abit like starting at 6 months again with very little being eaten.

So how do I wean off all this formula onto cows milk without her being starving from not eating much solids yet?

Do you give your babysbreakfast al etc straight on waking and no morning bottles? At the moment we do breakfast an hour after wake up bottle- the thought of having to give her solid breakfast before taking her to nursery each day is daunting but she would be hungry if she had to wait until she got there!
First time mum and I have so many questions about transitioning and what to do i have no clue!
Advice welcome !!

It’s quite normal to keep the morning and bedtime milk for quite awhile. My eldest certainly was having a cup of milk at bedtime still at 4/5. Yes, it’s milk straight away and breakfast maybe 30-60 minutes later.

To transition to cow’s milk, change out 10ml per bottle per day. So that slowly over say 2 weeks you transition completely to cow’s milk.

The 2 daytime bottles will naturally reduce. Are you feeding snacks? Those daytime feeds mid morning and mid afternoon become snacks, so things like a banana, yoghurt, crackers and cheese, toast and hummus, etc. I’d work on increasing what’s offered for snacks with the bottle after and it will eventually taper off.

At eight months, when I stopped breastfeeding, I went for solids THEN milk (immediately before first nap). I also forced the change from 4 bottles to 3 because baby didn't have much appetite for lunch. We are now at 11 months, transitioning from formula to whole milk, and on 2150ml and 1180ml feeds. Next step is to reduce the first two feeds to 120ml, which I think will be fine as the 3pm bottle often doesn't get finished anyway. Baby has also this month got much better at drinking from cups of various kinds - though has also learned to spit water long distances too!

Could you offer breakfast with a cup of Cow’s milk? I know you’re worried about her being hungry but at the moment she won’t have much of an appetite due to the amount of milk she’s having. Between 10 and 12 months the recommended amount is 450 mls reducing down to 300 mls at 12 months.

Once she’s had at least a couple of weeks without her first bottle, I’d drop another so that she’s having one before her nap and one before bed.

There’s no requirement to switch to cows milk at exactly 12 months if you don’t want to. If you feel there’s too much going on and she’s not eating enough and so on you can delay switching and stick with formula for another few months til things feel a bit more settled.

My daughter was on high calorie formula and was a poor eater and under a dietician (other medical condition influencing this), they continued prescribing the formula til 18m when they said we needed to focus on increasing amounts of food. It’s not necessary to immediately switch and cut bottles at 12m.