11 month old straight from breast to cow's milk?

[mamanddad]

Our little fellow is nearly 11 months old.

He is still being breastfed, three times a day at the moment. I need to leave him for two nights on his first birthday, so I want to have weaned him by then.

GP says it is okay to move him straight to cow's milk, as he is already taking it in his food (weetabix, etc.) and shows no allergic reaction. In fact he loves it. He has never been on formula.

Is it necessary (for the sake of five weeks) to wait to introduce cow's milk as his primary drink?

Thanks for any help/advice.

no, not necessary. as you say, hes had it and shown no reaction... i think youll be fine. are you doing it fairly gradually?

I waited until a few days before DD's 1st birthday cos we'd run out of milk and both DD's took to it without fuss (but there again we'd moved from breast to bottle a couple of months earlier). Maybe try it once and see how he takes it and if its ok then bingo. You will get told to wait till he's over 1 i'm sure.

sorry, i mean not necc to wait, not necc to do formula imo. it would just be another thing to get used to iyswim. formula is MUCH sweeter than cows milk, it took me ages to get ds3 off that silly growing up milk stuff [wuss]

I suppose I am worried about the risk of diabetes if he takes too much cow's milk.

Some people recommend waiting until a year, but does a month make too much difference?

diabetes? i didnt know that was a risk, sorry.

i dunno, you have to make the call, but to my mind, hes so nearly a year, and ts not the first time youve given it to him. as long as you dont go cold turkey, but up his intake gradually daily and watch for any adverse reactions, then i cant see how it would be a problem.

i'd go straight to cows milk

if you're only 5 weeks short of his b'day you'd probably want to drop the remaining 3 feeds one at a time over the next few weeks?

Yes I plan doing it gradually. Am thinking of trying to drop a feed a week if all is going well.

He won't drink out of a bottle, but at the moment he drinks water from a cup. I hope he will drink more from the cup once he isn't getting milk from the breast?

How much cow's milk should I give him per feed?

as much as he'll drink? hes used to deciding for himself when hes full (on the breast) you can trust him still.

Thanks for all the advice. We'll start weaning him onto cow's milk.

Be on stand by for explosive nappies..

mamanddad you don't need to stop bf to leave for a couple of days. you might get a bit engorged but nothing too bad, just express and can carry on with a couple of feeds a day. i went back to work about then and no prob.