After weaning my nearly 18 month old DD (finally) off formula two weeks ago and switching to her having just watered down milk in the morning (about 240ml) and then a couple of bottles at bedtime/waking up at night i have found that she seems to be constipated every couple of days. Is this just her belly adjusting or is approx 750ml too much milk over a day for her?
She has a drink bottle she drinks out of during the day and apart from the usually crankiness that goes with the constipation she is her happy self.
I have an almost 19month old son and from 12 month onwards we dropped his milk right down. Nowadays he rarely drinks milk. Maybe a couple of times a week and only about 150mL at a time. He gets his dairy/calcium in other forms.
Too much dairy can cause constipation and it does seem like quite a bit of milk. Does she drink water. By now she should be drinking a fair bit of water each day and that will definately help with the constipation.
It's sounds like a lot of milk, but I'm not sure about how much they should have.
Does she drink much water? Water definitely helps with constipation.
My DS the same age, has 1 cup of milk at morning tea, a little on his weetbix and the rest of the time he drinks water - he goes through a few bottles a day.
She drinks water sporadically, some days she drinks heaps and other days not much. Those days i try and put a driblle of milk in her bottle just so it looks white and then all water. She is a bugger with her eating. Some days she will eat heaps and other days...like today...she has eaten next to nothing. I have tried to offer her different things and tried to involve her in the process, but she is a lazy little sod and if you dont catch her in that window between hungry and overtired all bets are off. So maybe just cut out milk completely and break her of habit??
Yeah, I'd try cutting way back. 200ml max, maybe? Or less even. If she's filling up on milk then she's not going to eat much. Also, don't worry too much if she has eating days and noneating days, it's totally normal. If you average it out over the week, then it'll probably still look pretty good, if that makes sense.
I'd try to cut back as well. I also read, on this amazing site, that it's not what they eat in a day but what they eat in a 48hr period and I would even go as far to say average what she has eaten out over a 5 day period. You will probably be surprised how much go stuff she is actually consuming.
With DD1 we cut back to a warm (or cold depending on weather) milk with breakfast then some days she would have a biscuit & milk in the afternoon but she dropped her own night time bottle around 12mths.
If she wakes over night can you give her water slightly warmed and rather than a bottle of milk?
I second that if she is filling up on milk she will tend to eat less, we found that DD1 did that so we only ever offered the bottle either 30-40min BEFORE food (even up to an hour) OR she didn't get it until after food, even then we would try and allow roughly 30min for food to settle.
I can't remember exactly, but I think my health nurse told me they are supposed to go from approx 600ml at 12 months to 250ml around the 2 year mark. (250ml being 1 serve of dairy, with 2-3 serves of dairy per day including cheese and yogurt)
750ml is a bit much, but I do know how hard it can be with a fussy kid. I'd suggest only give milk in the morning with breakfast, or before a nap.
And if she is so attached to her milk during the day you will probably have a few days of battles.
Reply With Quote
Registered User
Dairy Overload?
Bookmarks