Nearly one! How much should he be getting?

[MommyN]

DS2 will be one mid March. The past few days he's been drinking an extra ounce at each milk feed. Is that right? Shouldn't he be heading towards less formula and more solids? He currently nurses early morning has two 6 ounce day time bottles and a 6 ounce bed time bottle. Past few days the bottles were 7 ounce. He loves his bottles and cries for them at the same time every day.

Thanks.

[Lolly]

You are at the point where milk starts dropping. Around 1 most babies (toddlers!) are dropping to a morning feed and a bedtime feed, from 1 they need around 12oz of dairy to get their needs met.

What is his solids intake like? It could be he's holding out for milk as it's easy. When my DD was 13 months we had to stop her morning bottle as she wasn't eating any breakfast, so she had cereal and then a drink of milk in a sippy with toast mid morning.

Keep in mind that milk becomes a drink after 1, it's not a food any more and solids need to be his main source of nutrition. You could start reducing one the day time milk bottles slowly and offer a snack with them.

Laura

[MommyN]

Thanks! I thought so...
He likes his solids, but his portions are pretty small. I feed him till he stops eating/ starts dropping his food over the side of his highchair.
I think I'll start by dropping his daytime bottles to four ounces and take it from there.

[MommyN]

Thanks. He's been eating table foods 3 times a day for a while now. I'm working towards getting him to eat more of a full meal with snacks in between and reducing his bottles to 2 (or 3 small ones) a day.

Why would someone choose stage 3 formula over whole cow's milk? How do we make the transition? (I'm totally inexperienced with this. DS1 never took a bottle- went from nursing to nothing. He doesn't like milk so we give him lots of yogurt and cheese...)

Thanks!

[Lolly]

The only reason not to switch to cow's milk would be if there was a dairy intolerance or allergy which you would know about by now!

Stage 2 and 3 formulas or toddler milks as they are sometimes known are basically a marketing ploy. The formula manufacturers can't advertise first formulas (birth plus) or put offers on them so they have made different formulas for 6 months plus and toddlers to get around that. If a toddler is getting as varied a diet as they will allow ( ) there is no nutritional need for it.

You can transition by swapping formula for cow's milk oz by oz. For example if he has a 6oz bottle you make up a 5oz bottle and then add 1oz of cow's milk, after a couple of days you can swap another oz of formula for cow's  milk and so on until it's all cow's milk. I did this with both mine and they adapted well, if he doesn't like milk to drink then add as much dairy to his food as you can.

Laura

[MommyN]

Thanks for that! He LOVES his bottles, so I'm hoping he'll take it whatever's in there... One more thing. I make his bottles warm. (when I weaned him from breast to bottle I thought that would be easier on him.) Should I slowly make his formula bottles less and less warm to prepare him for milk? Or just warm up the cow's milk?

[Lolly]

You can do what suits you really but cold milk is much easier than warm! That said, some people do like a warm drink at bedtime but I think cold milk tastes better!

Laura

[MommyN]

I think cold milk tastes better!

Definitely agree with you there! I'm just nervous that if he's used to warm bottles he won't take it. I'm going to try giving him a room temperature bottle today and see what happens.

[MommyN]

He downed a cold formula bottle! So yay for step one.

[jessmum46]