Weaning at 12 Months

[JayLeigh]

I am planning on weaning DS at around a year. I am not going to rush it as I know how important it is. He is now 11.5 months and we are down to 2 1/2 feeds a day. ONe in the morning, one before bed, and a quick on during the day if he is restless/comfort feed.

Should I wean to cow milk? I have been introducing it the past month or so, and DS does NOT care for it, he takes sips but makes faces. He mostly drinks water from a sippy, pretty well. He s a weird baby, never took a paci, refused the bottle in every form, doesn't like milk and doesn't like juice.

I am just concerned about his nutrition, he is a really healthy eater of solids and table foods of all sorts, just a spoiled breast baby! Should he be on cow milk if I am weaning and how can I get him to like it??

[~ Vik ~]

In Canada (and I think the recommendations in the States are similar) it is fine to wean to cow's milk after 1yo.  There's really no need to use the toddler formulas if he's eating a varied diet of solids, so milk should be fine.

We weaned to soy milk (dairy allergy) for day feeds not too long ago.  DS hated it at first so we had to introduce it gradually.  Do you pump at all?  We ended up doing this for his feeds:
Week 1: 4oz ebm and 1oz soy
Week 2: 3oz ebm and 2oz soy
Week 3: 2.5oz ebm and 2.5oz soy
Week 4: 2oz ebm and 3oz soy
Week 5: 1oz ebm and 4oz soy
Week 6: all soy

He didn't reject it at any stage really, so it worked quite well for us.  HTH!