started on full cream milk...but what happens after 12 months?

unsure what to do here so need some advice. i know there are some that will come in here and tell me to wait to give my DD full cream milk but she has been fine on it and loves it so far.

my DD has bottles at the following times:

6.00am- full cream milk
10.00am - formula
2.00pm - formula
6.00pm - formula
10.00pm - dreamfeed - formula

she has solids at 7.00am (cereal), 12.00noon (lunch), 4.00pm (dinner).

will introduce another full cream bottle tomorrow instead of formula so she is having two bottles per day.

just wondering, what happens after 12 months? do i just give her full cream milk all the time and do i still give her bottles or does she drink from something else?

confused....

p.s. is she having too many feeds????

I know for us, we took changing over the formula to the full cream milk pretty easy - mainly because I have a slight intolerance to it myself, and can't drink it without yukky side effects!!

So we diluted his normal formula bottles down with a certain percentage being cows milk. As in, he was on 240 mls, we would make up 180 of formula, top it up with cows milk. We took about 3 months to fully change over to cows milk.

With regards to the bottles over to other cups - we changed him around 15 months I suppose? Not too long after changing fully over to cows milk - and we ONLY changed over because he didn't want the bottle anymore - he refused the milk in the bottle, so we gave it to him in a sippy cup and never looked back from there.

HTH!!

never thought of doing top ups....what a good idea!

We went straight from formula to cows milk at 11 months. I started offering her a cup from around 12 months, and now she can drink any drink from a cup.
From the age of 2, they can have low fat milk, until then, it's full fat.

For DS we just switched 1 bottle every second day for straight cows. Had no problems at all, he didnt know the difference. I just did it in his bottles otherwise too many transitions i think will cause problems in the process. I think it wasnt until he was about 16 months or so that i changed him over to sippy cups for his milk.. just bought some and started calling them his bottle. They are Disney Pooh Bear ones with yellow and green lids (2 in a pack).. they have a pointed spout. He had no problems with that either.

But yeh, you might also find you wont need to give as many at 12 months. I think the average is 3 bottles as by then meals/snacks are most important for nourishment. DS just started one day to not drink the middle of the day one so i just dropped that out. He now still has a sippy cup of milk when he wakes and one before bed(if he asks for it).

Best of luck!

Thanks Kellxx...she drinks from those HEINZ sippy cups now, has about 3 of those per day with water (so around 600mL), loves her water. They have handles. So do you just transfer the milk to those a little bit later?

She is fine so far on one bottle of full cream per day, will switch to two bottles from tomorrow, doesn't seem to have a problem with it at all. I give her cereal with added iron and her sandwich is wholemeal with extra iron also. I just make sure she gets that iron intake as she's not really eating heaps of meat at the moment.

Jodi, sounds like your daughter also had a good transition with the full cream milk.

You can try it definately. If shes happy to drink from those, yeh 1 day try putting her milk in it, see how she goes. If she takes it then totally good. But I guess also it depends how attached she is to her bottles. Though if she is, i guess last thing you want is for her to start refusing her water in her normal cup because she thinks its milk. You may find (which i did with DS) that getting a whole other new sippy cup easier, to just have their milk from. I guess its personal choice and trial and error really. But only other thing though i found with certain sippy cups is alot of the non spill is a little removable attachment thing on the inside iykwim. It is soooooo hard to get milk out of those when cleaning. Reason i liked the Disney Pooh Bear ones is the non spill is just a slit in a piece of cylocone on the spout. So they dont have that little attachment inside and it makes them so much easier to clean.

Yeh thats fine.. as long as she likes the milk and has had no reaction to it, just switch over like you are :)

It is recommended that you stop using bottles from around 12 months as it can increase the risk of dental decay. So I would start trying a sippy cup.

Also from 12 months, they shouldn't have more than 3 cups of milk a day (a cup in this sense is usually 150 - 200 mls), as it can interfere with solids eating. Also dairy can be hard on tummies, even in adults. There is no reason to give formula after 12 months or once cows' milk is fully established approaching 12 months. HTH.

I didn't give milk drinks, only water. So when it's time to drop a feed, put in a water drink - in a cup. Maybe a yoghurt or cheese and biscuits if you're worried about dairy intake.

But DS has problems with dairy; he would scream all afternoon after a morning drink of cow's milk. That had a lot to do with why I just never bothered giving it. He has goat's milk now and is happier, but I still don't give him milk straight up very much. (He prefers cheese anyway.)

Manta, I wasn't aware of that so thanks very much for that information.

I began mixing DD's formula with cows milk at 11 months, whenever she had a bottle (about 3-4 a day by then) i mixed it 1 part milk to 3 parts formula for a week, then half each, then 3:1, then just cow. When she was 12 months i just gave her cups instead (by then she only had 2-3 cups of milk a day and NEVER drank more than half of any given cup, preferred water). So i guess i cold-turkeyed on the bottles but she'd been having sippy cups for some drinks for months and she never seemed to notice.

Bx

Hoobley, that is what I am doing now, 3 parts formula, 1 part cows milk...this week and then next week I will do half and then go from there. Thanks everyone for your responses, I think it's better for her tummy to gradually give it to her by mixing it with her formula :D

So glad all is well in the sleep department Queen

Doh - I was supposed to post this in your thread..

Forgive my ignorant question, but,

If it's good for babies to have breastmilk beyond 12 months, why is it bad for them to have formula beyond 12 months?

I thought that the formulas were supposed to be as close as possible to breastmilk, and presumably they are quite different to cows milk. So I'm confused by that suggestion above.

Can someone please explain? :)

I think its the Toddler formula (stage 3) that is bad and not necessary as its full of sugar. You can keep them on the 2nd stage if you wish, i think thats fine, but i think the reason they go to cows at 12 months is food is now more important for nutrition than the formula. They just dont need formula beyond 12 months provided they have a stable healthy diet.. plus cows is alot cheaper than formula! ;)

Kellxx, yes so much cheaper than formula!!!!