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.
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.
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.
None of mine have ever had toddler milk and all of them swapped straight to cows milk when they were about 12-13mths and we never had a problem.
I agree toddler milk is a sugary gimmick...if you are worried about your toddler's nutritional intake something like pentivite would be more beneficial but most toddlers don't need it.
Except for my youngest who is still on formula at 15 mths due to weight issues.
If you're worried about using whole cows milk and want something a little nutritionally richer you can use goats milk. Goats milk is the closest milk to breastmilk out of all the non-human milk options. It's higher in protein, calcium, and lower in fat, better for the heart and easier to digest.
hmmm, well i don't think i started giving my kids normal milk until they were 2, unless it was on cereal....before that i put them on toddler milk.....but everyone else seems to think it's fine, so i don't know...each to their own?
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