How does switching from formula to cow's milk work at 12 months? ( my brain no longer works).

[DogsandDungarees]

Please could someone help me understand how weening off formula works for babies? I feel like my brain just isn’t working and I don’t get it.

My baby is 9 months and eats 3 meals a day and has 4 bottles of formula a day. Reading online it says babies should be on full fat cows milk at 12 months..

Do you just suddenly switch as they can’t have cows milk as a drink before 12 months can they? Is this given in an open cup? ( baby currently has water with meals in a straw cup).

any advice welcome, my brains stopped working.

Over the course of a few days, I mixed 1/4 cows milk + 3/4 formula in a bottle, then 50:50 then 3/4 cows milk 1/4 formula. Then 100% cows milk.

I think (although not 100% sure of my memory) that we had already switched away from bottles to a sippy cup. But if not, I'd do that after they are already accepting the cows milk.

Edit to add, I did all this shortly after her 1st birthday. I saw no rush to do it immediately.

If you're happy that they're not lactose intolerant, you could just swap one of the formulas for cows milk, or half and half. And just slowly keep swapping it. Really you want them to be having a solid amount of food in the day to make the switch when my youngest turned one she only had a couple of cups a milk a day as she was eating so much! So it's very child dependent and needs to compliment their overall diet, if you have a child that eats very little for instance, I wouldn't completely swap out formula at age 1 from a vitamins pov.

Maybe I’m a bit lax but I just finished the tub of formula and switched to milk.

DD was combi fed at that point so it wasn’t everything that changed. But I didn’t mix milk and formula at any point. No real reason, it just didn’t really occur to me as an option.

By twelve months mine was only on two bottles a day anyway (the others were replaced with snacks or baby just stopped wanting/finishing the bottle). So we were down to one before morning nap, one before bed.

I swapped the milk in 1 Oz at a time until I finished the formula. I actually did this at 11 months because we were going to the US (it's a pain to take formula & buying there was mega expensive) and baby only needed milk twice per day anyway.

At 13 months, I swapped to a 360 cup which put baby off the morning milk, and at some point around 20 months my now toddler stopped asking for milk at bedtime, so we didn't offer. Very occasionally toddler does ask and we give 50ml in a cup. Milk in cereal, yoghurt and cheese make up the dairy content.

I think ideally you'd move off bottles and formula, but you wouldn't be swapping the volume like for like, ideally. Too much cows milk inhibits iron absorption and fills them up instead of eating a variety of food. I'd be reducing formula down from now on, and trying it in a straw cup instead. I think NHS recommends no more than 350/400ml cows milk a day, as a drink. Also it's not like you have to switch everything at exactly 12 months, just be heading in that direction.

I wouldn’t think of it as a straight swap, because turning 1 also means (ideally) no bottles and milk is a much smaller part of their diet. Start by swapping the 2 bottles during the day for snacks. Then when they wake up instead of a bottle go straight to breakfast and offer a cup of cows milk alongside, unless they’re having a milky breakfast like cereal or porridge and then not needed. Finally look at the bedtime bottle. Some people keep the bottle for a bit longer as it’s a strong sleep association, other babies might not be so bothered and you can always add an ounce of cows milk at a time if they object to the swap so like make a 6oz bottle as normal then do another ounce of cows milk, and over time increase the ratio. Whatever you do though teeth should be brushed afterwards.

I just switched to milk straight away. Also in a sippy cup as bottles are meant to be stopped at 12 months

I swItched dd to cows at about 10 months and only from sippy cups because she was resisting the bottle and the tin was empty! They did it at 6 months in France.

Note: happy, healthy, growing baby who wasn't fussy about food. She rejected the breast at 9 months, didn't want a bottle with formula and cows in a cup was a happy compromise.

I switched out about 10ml per bottle every few days over the course of a month, starting at about 11.5 months. By the time she was about 12.5 months she was on 100% cows milk.

Perfect, thank you everyone that was really helpful and informative :)

I had been gradually switching to cows milk for her cereal, food etc then when she was 1 I ran out of baby milk and gave her cows milk. She wasn’t a massive fan og cows milk though 😂

switched to full fat cows milk 4 x 4 ounces and he was fine. Will only take it from a baby bottle or open cup. The baby bottle seems to be common amongst my friends with babies of a similar age.