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Weaning

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Plant based milks for babies?

4 replies

dampthursday · 06/12/2022 08:21

DD has just turned 6 months and we’re starting weaning this week. My partner and I are vegan, DD is not going to be vegan but will be vegetarian. I’m looking at different meals I can make for her (when we get to the stage of proper meals!) but I can’t seem to find any information about whether it’s ok for her to have small amounts of plant based milk in cooking (in scrambled eggs, maybe on weetabix etc), instead of cow’s milk? I will buy yoghurt, cheese etc for her, but I’d rather not buy milk because it just won’t get drunk before it goes off. The NHS website says she can have them as a main drink after 12 months, but I can’t see anything for before that.

She’s mainly breastfed, so I could use expressed milk, but that seems like a bit of a waste. I could make up a tiny bit of formula (she has a bottle or so a day, sometimes none if I’ve managed to express) but that seems a bit of a faff. I also wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not great with dairy from a dietary point of view. Me, my partner, both of his older children and my siblings have dairy/lactose intolerances so it stands to reason that she might do too.

OP posts:
Perpop · 06/12/2022 08:24

Hey! Yes it’s fine, I just used unsweetened oat milk for cooking from 6 months onwards (she was also EBF) unless I had some spare breastmilk I’d use that. I would introduce it slowly as weaning can be hard on their wee tummies in the beginning and breastmilk helps with keeping their poop regular etc.

Twokidsanddone · 06/12/2022 08:26

I've had two CMPA babies. Absolutely fine to use plant based milks in cooking, cereal etc when weaning from 6 months! Alpro do toddler plant based milks which is what we used they do an oat and a soy one. We used those as their main drinking milk from 12 months as well until we were comfortable reintroducing dairy.

Blessedbethefruitz · 06/12/2022 08:30

Barista oat milk is good for the high fat content, it's what our now almost 4 year old has. He could eventually handle other food dairy products (cmpa) but not cow milk.

dampthursday · 06/12/2022 08:36

Thank you very much everyone, that’s great!

We normally buy unsweetened oat milk, but we could definitely get some of the Alpro Growing Up oat milk.

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