Toddler Milk or Normal Cows Milk - Your opinion??

[Catastrophic]

I would/have go the cows milk.
They recommend start using small amounts of cows milk (in breaky etc) from 9months, and then move from formula to cows milk, I never did the half/half.

[MumtoA]

Awesome, thanks ladies...cows milk it is! Do you just use the normal full fat milk or has anyone tried the 'special calcium enriched' ones???

Also, my girl is on 3 bottles a day now - one mid morn, mid arvo and then night. She has her morning bottle from a normal cup so i know she can do this (with my help) and she also very competent at using a straw cup. Did you cut out bottles all at once or one at a time??? suggestions grateful!
xo

[grub17]

hi love, just go full fat cows milk. She should also be getting calcium from other areas of her diet as well.
My ds is 15 months and loves his milk - so he has one in the morn, one before his nap (just after lunch) and one at bedtime. But he also drinks plenty of water too. I"m quite happy that he drinks 3 cups of milk a day for many years to come (although we'll move to skim once he's 7 or so probably).

I don't think there's a right or wrong. So long as she isn't filling up on milk before a meal; is eating well and also drinking plenty of water - if you are happy to do 3 milk drinks then why not?!

That's just my opinion and experience, so someone will most likely know a lot better than me and probably correct me! lol. hth

oh and you'll love her going onto cows milk! so much easier!!!

[onthefly]

I guess making a gradual transition would probably be easiest. One thing - you don't need to replace all the milk with milk (if that makes sense), they need food and milk is just a part of the diet. I've known peopel who have switched all the formula bottels for bottles of cow's milk and their kids just didn't eat as they got so full of milk. The milk isn't even essential, really, as there are other ways of getting calcium etc (if your child is like mine and refuses any milk but breastmilk )

[AndiE]

I'm another who says go for the cows milk. I was still BFing DS2 a couple of times a day when I began to "ease" him into a little cows milk (very slightly watered down to start with). He would have been about 11 months at the time. He was happy with the taste, and over a couple of weeks I stopped adding any water. Not suggesting you or anyone else needs to water it down a tad - I just found that approach worked for him. Having said that, I give DS2 full fat yoghurt and cheese most days (plus other "normal" food, so he doesn't have that much cow's milk. At most, even now that we stopped BFing, he has max 120mml twice a day.
DS1 was hooked on formula (stopped BFing 13 months, but he then had formula for another 12 months) - took AGES to get him off that an onto cow's milk. So I decided DS2 wouldn't have formula at all (though we did BF 15 months).
Both my boys drink heaps of water too - I prefer to keep them hydrated with water over and above anything else.

[sconeonamission]

DS dropped his night feed randomly at age 1 ( I think he was 15mths) and all I had was milk. So that's what he got!

[Cass72]

I had bought stage 2 formula (and used to mix this with his cereal). I've offered him formula in a cup - which he wasn't too fussed on and wouldn't drink and I've offered cows milk and he still didn't like it. DH picked up Bellamy's toddler milk by accident and well, the little one loves it! He will polish off a bottle in no time. I'm guessing it must have inordinate amounts of sugar or something else in the flavouring that he likes. I agree the whole thing is a gimmick and they don't really need it but, FWIW I would like him to have a cup of milk during the day and, there are worse things I could be giving him!

At the moment he's having 2 - 3 BFs a day. I give him some toddler milk when I feel like he isn't getting enough from me as it feels like my supply has dropped considerably.

[volcomkitty]

Another one here for not bothering with the toddler formula.

We bought one tin, just to see what it was like. DH was making a bottle and decided to have a taste, cos he thought it smelt sweeter than the usual iron-y kinda smell he was used to. He thought it tasted just like normal powdered milk, so he didn't see the point of buying it, so cows milk it was. DD had no problems switching over.