Author Topic: Milk and meal times after turning 1  (Read 1320 times)

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Offline BeeAnn

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Milk and meal times after turning 1
« on: October 19, 2013, 14:49:50 pm »
My DD is 10.5 months old and I am starting to think about when she turns one and can drink cow's milk and should stop using her bottle.

Her milk / mealtimes are currently roughly:
7am morning formula (220ml)
8.30am breakfast (1 weetabix plus fruit puree or toast or porridge and fruit puree)
11.30am formula (just dropped to 180ml)
1pm lunch (finger food or veg meal and fromage frais)
5pm dinner (an annabel karmel meal including protein - about 5 oz and fruit or fruit puree)
6.45pm formula (240ml)

I don't quite know how I am meant to switch her over to cow's milk and also phase out the bottles.  Do I do it gradually one bottle at a time, all together etc? 

She finishes all her milk and would probably drink more if I let her, so I am a bit worried if we switch to cows milk from a cup then she will drink less (have read that they shouldn't drink more than 350ml) and therefore be hungry at night (which always means a 5.15am start to the day for us!)  How much cow's milk should she be drinking and when during the day?

In addition, when she goes to nursery her mealtimes will be 8-9am breakfast, 11.30am lunch (hot meal and dessert) and 3.30pm snack (I think like a sandwich). 

This is obviously quite different to what we do now so wondering whether I need to move her meals now to be more aligned - in which case do I just go cold turkey and switch things around?  And do we need to feed her again between her 3.30pm snack and bedtime milk?!  What would an ideal meal routine look like.

Lots of questions but wanted to get them all out there as if I can switch things around once for the meal times and the cow's milk then that would be ideal!  It just feels like it is that magic '1 year' age when things change but I don't know how!

Any advice or insight into experiences would be very helpful.

Offline creations

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Re: Milk and meal times after turning 1
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2013, 16:36:36 pm »
Hi
I probably wouldn't try to change her routine just yet. It must feel like she is just about to turn 1yo but quite a lot can happen in the next couple of months. For instance at 10 months mine had 2 naps so meals fitted around those, by 11 months he was moving to 1 nap and by 12 months was firmly on just 1 nap per day, which means meal times often change.  Not all LOs drop to 1 nap that early though so I wouldn't plan on that either.
If you see she would like more to eat maybe introduce a solids snack mid morning (with the milk or to replace the milk at 11.30) and mid afternoon (there's usually a milk feed around 3pm ish which gets swapped to a solids snack, although if she is eating her lunch and dinner well I prob wouldn't introduce a snack between right now and disturb those meals).
By 12 months her primary food become the solids and I would expect the mid morning milk to have already switched to a solids snack and a sippy of water.  Leaving you with two bottles of milk.  Many people continue with the bottle for a while after 12 months (some much longer), It is your personal choice. I dropped the BT bottle at 12 months and the morning bottle at 13 months, both went fine, no problems.  The BT bottle I switched to a supper solids snack with a sippy of milk prior to the BT routine, then offered his bottle as usual at BT but with less in the bottle. In less than 2 weeks the switch was done with zero disruption to our BT wind down, no tears, no hunger, no bed time refusal etc.  Yes he took less milk overall but that's ok when they reach 1yo and solids are their main source of food.  The morning bottle I kept a little longer as I wanted to maintain a decent milk intake on that one.  Over the next month I split the teat on his bottle, sat him upright to drink, then switched to a straw in the cup/bottle (still holding him) as he didn't take well to a sippy cup for this milk even though he was well used to a sippy for water through the day and for milk at supper time.

Switching to cows milk - you can literally just fill the bottle with cows milk and give it to her unless you know of any allergy.  If she refuses it and if it is milk she *needs* (because she still needs two cups per day) then you might want to gradually change it by reducing by 30ml of formula and topping up with 30 milk of cow milk.  After a couple of days switch another 30 ml and so on, to get her used to the change in taste.  There isn't actually any harm in continuing formula longer it's just more expensive and a hassle to make it.

hope this helps some