Talk to me about moving from bottles to cups and formula to whole milk

[Firsttimemum84]

My little one turned 1 a few weeks ago and I have started mixing whole milk with his formula. Still having 3 bottles a day as well as 3 meals. When do I stop giving the formula and just go straight to milk?
Also he uses Doidy/tommee tippee for water already so do i just go for it and use these for milk too? someone suggested keeping bottle for bedtime for a while? Thoughts and advice greatly welcomed!

I have been told that milk interferes with iron absorption in children under 2 years. I used formula for the first 2 years before moving to milk. Maybe you could check with a HV if this is true/necessary?

NHS advice is to ditch bottles altogether at 1 yr old, and to swap to full fat cows milk at that age too. They should have about 300ml of cows milk a day, and not much more than that. It is true that too much cows milk can interfere with iron absorption, but 300 ml is fine. The main reason for the NHS advice suggesting 300 ml is that this provides the daily recommended amount of calcium. If your baby gets enough calcium from other sources then you don't need to give that much cows milk.

ExBrighton - thanks for clarifying, good to know the precise advice fr NHS on this.

My daughter also suffered from constipation due to cows milk, so I had to delay it a bit.

With milk we just sort of stopped formula and replaced it with cow's milk one day. Funny nappies for one day I think, and then she was fine.

As for bottles, that's a whole other debate! We tried beakers at 1 but DD refused to drink milk out of them. She'd drink water out of any kind of cup, beaker or straw, but as far as she was concerned milk came in a bottle. She's 2.3yo now and still has a bottle morning and night, and we've only just dropped the afternoon milk, which she dropped when we gave it to her in a beaker as opposed to a bottle. She drinks the bottle quickly and has her teeth brushed afterwards so we're not worried. She absolutely loves her milk, especially the bedtime drink, so I'd rather she had milk from a bottle than no milk at all.

Which is a lot of waffle to say try milk in other beakers and hopefully he'll approve of the change, but if not there are a surprisingly large number of toddlers who stay on bottles of milk for a long time. The bottle issue is more having all their drinks in them, keeping it between their teeth for a long time, taking it to bed etc.

If you want an intermediate between bottles and harder spout cups, we found the Nuk bottles with soft spouts a happy medium.

They are also see-through which our DS liked.

I've read that NHS advice, and lots of others along the same line, and the way it is always worded is that you can switch to cows milk. They don't say you should.

It gives the impression that it's an economical/practical choice, rather than that cows milk is the most suitable thing for over 1s. Which is it? Is cows milk better for them? Or is it just cheaper and easier?

My understanding of it is that you can give cows milk as a main drink over 1, and it is suitable for children of this age (as long as it's full fat milk). Formula is no longer necessary, although it clearly is still suitable for them. The "toddler milks" that are sold as suitable for over 1s are unnecessary and expensive.

I think the reason the NHS give the advice is to point out that you don't have to keep providing potentially expensive formula milk, and can just use cows milk. The 300ml suggestion is to meet the daily calcium needs of children, so if your child eats a varied diet that already includes that much calcium then milk/formula is not a necessity. Indeed if you are breastfeeding then that will cover a fair amount of the calcium (and other) requirements, depending on how much you are feeding. The NHS advice also I think is there to indicate that breastfeeding mums don't need to give formula from 1 year old if they decide to stop offering breastfeeds.

Obviously if your child is not eating very much at 12 months, then you might want to continue offering formula (if not breastfeeding) until they are eating a reasonable amount of food.

This might be a silly question, but do you warm the cows milk? is it just preference depending on what LO would prefer to drink?

Also, did you have to increase breakfast much? DS is currently drinking 8oz milk, complaining when he finishes then having a fair bit of food an hour later! did you have to introduce a mid morning snack to compensate?

Don't try to switch bottles and milk at the same time -just because your mother who you should know better than to listen to tells you to- otherwise you end up with a child who completely stops drinking milk overnight!!! I'd do formula in some sort of cup (try a few styles if you can) then when they are used to it you can go to cows milk....

I always warmed the milk, and still do for bottles that will be drunk as bottles, but that's mainly because I don't like the idea myself of drinking a massive bottle of freezing cold milk! The few times I have tried a cold bottle she's just demanded it be warmed up

Milk in a beaker that DC will sip at I give cold.

Me again. And just to add another variable to the mix...

When do you move the bedtime milk before the bedtime stories? As I understand it, I should stop feeding him to sleep, so that he learns he can get himself to sleep, so that he can do it in the middle of the night.

I started giving him his milk followed by a story then bed when we started sleep training at 6 months. We didn't have any problems!

We never warmed anything, the hospital and his foster carer said not to bother warming formula and we just carried on the same.
Once we accidentally gave him frozen formula - he tried to drink it! I wondered why the bottle was rattling.

Swapped the morning bottle to a cup at about 11 months without too much trouble.

Swapped formula to milk at 12 months and a week or so when the tin ran out. This went absolutely fine.

Swapped the night time bottle to a cup at about 19 months when I gave her a cup rather than a bottle one night and she didn't object. Had done the other couple of times I tried.

I know the NHS says to stop bottles at 12 months but she loved it so much, I never left it in her cot with her and I always brushed her teeth post bottle so I figured it'd be ok.

She always had her formula fridge cold and refused to drink warm milk.