Cows milk at 6 months?

[GreenSpaghetti]

Could somebody remind me of the guidelines for cows milk please? Its ok in cooking / on cereal from 6 months but shouldn't be given as the main milk source till a year. Is that right? Thanks

I think that it's ok cooked, but for cold cereal etc, its better to use formula and definitely formula for drinking. The thinking behind this is that the later they are introduced to wheat, and in this case, dairy, then the more unlikely they are to have a problem with it. In fact I have a 23 month old, and I used formula in all his food until a year old!

The NHS advice is full fat cows milk is fine in cooking (which includes being used cold with cereal etc) from 6 months. Just not as a main drink until 1. The reason for this is nothing to do with intolerances/allergies. It's that cows milk doesn't have the right balance of vitamins, minerals, proteins etc to be used as a main drink. It is fine as a food alongside other foods, hence using it on cereal being ok.

Can't see why you would put formula on cereal, seems unnecessary to me, and expensive! Formula is made out of processed cows milk anyway, so if dairy is a problem then formula surely would have the same reaction?

I agree with you, GreenSpaghetti (and BrightonBell).
Formula or BM to drink, but cows milk is fine for food related things.

Swifey: why would I start buying formula just because my baby was eating food? Its not something we had in the house, and I wasn't about to start expressing. I can see if a baby was reluctant to eat cows milk, and was used to formula, it could be a useful half way point, but why would I deliberately introduce something that then needed to be removed from the diet again?

I've been told I can put my 11 month old on cows milk now but I've still got formula left so he's sticking with that. He has cows milk in his food though. Once they are on cows milk altogether they should be given daily vitamins aswell