Formula to cows milk advice please!!!!!

DS had his one year check up the other day and the health nurse told me to stop giving him formula and go straight onto cows milk. I wasnt comfortable with this, I have had a couple of friends do this and their kids just ended up sick all the time.

He has cows milk in a sippy cup during the day but has still been having a bottle early in the morning like 5am then again 10am then maybe 1pm-2pm and 5pm and then 9:30pm, its not like this everyday, most days he goes from 10am to 5pm without a bottle.

He is a great eater but I still feel like he needs the bottles not sure why though.

What did you do?

If you dont feel comfortable there is no harm in keeping him on formula a bit longer..... I put DD on cows milk at around 15 and just phased it in over a mth or so. Just dint get toddler formula just keep him on whatever hens currently on!!!

I'll be honest hon, that's a lot of bottles at that age. DD was down to three bottles at one - the first was mid morning (well after breakfast), the second was mid afternoon then the last before bed. She had roughly 200mls each bottle.

When we moved her to cows milk, we actually went cold turkey! She had been having cows milk on her cereal for months and had been eating plenty of other dairy products so we weren't too concerned about the transition. We didn't intend to go cold turkey though, it just happened that we ran out of formula on our last night on our holiday so cows milk was the only option and we never looked back (she was 2 weeks past one year at that time).

I know others who have mixed cows milk and formula to do things slowly, some of those with experience mixing the two will hopefully pop in to give you advice :)

Good luck. It seems so daunting at first, I remember that!

PS my DD is 2 next month and she still drinks milk from bottles. She loves her bottle, it's one of her comfort things, so we don't plan on changing anything just yet. We are going to tackle it when she's a bit older and can understand a bit more. Each to their own but we are happy for our DD to enjoy her bottles for a bit longer yet ;)

Forgot to add JJ is 3 in October and we Are only just dropping his 2 bottles at the moment, so you just do what you need to to get through. At 12 mths mine were on 4 bottles/boob a day.

We went from EBM (via bottle), and we had to do a bit of a gradual transition - she didn't like the taste of cow's milk. Pie was about 13 months when we started shifting to cow's milk & just over 14 months when we changed completely. I did it by mixing a bit of cow's milk in with her EBM and gradually upping the amount of cow's milk. You can do the same thing with formula, just mix up a smaller amount (but in the same ratio of powder to water) and add a bit of cow's milk in.
Or if he doesn't mind the taste, try switching one or two bottles a day over.
Four or five a day does seem like a lot of bottles at 12 months, but if he's eating well I can't see the harm in it...Pie was probably having the same at that age although hers were mostly overnight, and she still has bottles now (she has just turned two).
Do what suits you & your LO ;)

Thanks girls, great to hear what others have done, I breastfed my DD for 13months then she went onto cows milk, I had no milk left because I was pregnant so the transition was easy but I have never had any experience with the bottle before DS so thanks for the advice.
Taurean I did think it was a lot, even though its not like that every day thanks heaps :)

At 12 months Connor was on the three bottles of EBM a day at 18 months he still has two and sometimes the third one after his afternoon nap. What you can do is replace a bottle or two with another calcium/source. For example one slice of cheese is equivalent to 1x250ml bottle of milk, or a small tub of yoghurt is the same. He probably doesn't need all that much fluid as milk now if his solids are well established, just make sure to offer lots of water so the fluid levels are maintained....hope that makes sense!

We went straight from formula to cows milk as soon as the tin of formula was finished. My DD had no issues but she has no issues with any food

Glad we could help :) Good luck with it all, whenever you decide to make the change. There is definitely no hurry though, just when both of you are ready ;)

Hi Salad!!

My MCHN said the same thing at DD's 12 month check.. my DD is having pretty much the exact same amount of bottles as your DS.. only she was having ANOTHER one at night too!!! That was the big one the nurse wanted me to completely cut out!!! And by some miracle, about a week after our appt she stopped having it! I didnt do anything!!!

I have started making 180ml of formla and then topping the bottle up with milk for her bottles during the day. I still make her bed time one full formula though. She eats alot of food too, so i dont know what else to do!! DS was breast fed til 15 months (exact same as you- i was pregnant and we just dropped feeds naturally as my supply dwindled) so i can really only go by how i remember he fed, and from memory- if we were at home, he would feed more, if we were out and about he wouldnt. Which is the same for DD, except that due to having one car and nowhere within walking distance, i am always home!! I think they will drop them at their own pace, and for DS he never really went on to having cows milk regurlarly in a bottle, so there may not really even be the need to swap them over to cows milk IYKWIM.. just they will drop bottles all together and drink milk when they drink milk from a cup!

Good luck!!!

I'm actually going through this now. DS has been down to 2 bottles a day for a few months now... and he is down to about 400mls a day, this includes milk in his cereal. He has been having cows milk in his cereal for about a month now, and over the last 2 weeks I have been mixing formula and cows milk in each of his bottles. He doesn't seem to be having any issues with this, so it's just a matter of me taking the plunge and dropping the formula completely.