Introducing Whole Milk to EBF 13 month old?

[eogan0622]

Hi All,

My DD is 13 months and is EBF.  She breastfeeds 4x/day, and easily takes breastmilk from bottles.  She also eats 3 meals a day (although, like most toddlers, some days she eats a blueberry and other days she eats a ton) plus 2-3 snacks/day.  Doctor recommended starting to introduce whole milk into her diet. I'm not looking to replace whole milk with breastmilk, as I'm not trying to wean her just yet.  Doctor suggested giving her sippy cup of whole milk at meals, however after trying this for a week, she barely took a sip, and I felt like I was throwing out so much whole milk! A couple friends suggested trying to mix with breastmilk in ratios that gradually become more whole milk and less breastmilk.  So this week, for 2 of her daytime bottles, I've added 1/2 ounce of whole milk, and she's doing just fine with that.  The plan (I guess) would be to continue to increase so it's eventually 100% whole milk.  My question, however, is that with this plan, it's essentially phasing out the breastmilk from her daytime feeds and replacing it with all whole milk- which I'm not really trying to do.  Therefore- I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience with this and if I should be mixing in a sippy cup for meals? Or just stick with the whole milk in sippy cups for meals and hope she'll take it?  All the things I've been reading online about tranistioning to whole milk are more for people looking to stop breastfeeding...

Just wondering how others introduced it?

[trimbler]

I'm no expert, but since you asked for others' experiences...

I weaned DS off his daytime bfs at 13mo, since I had returned to work and was finding the pumping too much. Tried to replace it with whole cow's milk, but he never drank it much at all, so I continued to pump for those evenings where I'd miss BT and DH would give him EBM in a cup, until around 18mo I think, when I just decided to stop pumping altogether and let DH give cow's milk at BT instead - at first, he did drink a little, and actually asked for it at 25mo instead of BF, but really by then he was just wanting to wean and the cow's milk at BT didn't last long. He never took cow's milk after that and we just tried to make up for it with yoghurt, which he's always liked. I never liked cow's milk either, and neither did my mum, so I didn't feel it was fair to push him either

DD continued daytime BF until around 18mo, I tried introducing whole cow's milk at the CM before that, but although she actually liked drinking it, it seemed to make her really constipated and uncomfortable at night. Eventually however, we found that she was ok with a2 milk and she'll take almond milk otherwise (they don't always have whole a2 milk in stock and she hates semi!), we didn't have to do anything in particular to get her to drink it, she's just always been better at drinking than DS, and apparently likes the taste. I've stopped pumping so when I'm not around at BT then DH will give her the same milk in a cup, otherwise she still bfs on morning WU and BT. Not sure if that helps, but there's our experience

[*Ali*]

How's it going now?

I just saw your post and wanted to respond despite it being 10 days old.

I think your Dr is a little confused. There is absolutely no benefit at all from giving what is essentially the breastmilk of another species in place of your own breastmilk designed specifically for your own baby so I would just keep breastfeeding until you are both ready to wean. The WHO recommends BFing until 2yo and beyond btw.

Even when you do choose to move on from breastfeeding it should be replaced with a balanced diet of solid foods (after12mo)  not cows milk. Cows milk isn't a whole food and doesn't have the right balance of nutrients to be considered a food, it is just a drink. You don't want to be giving large quantities of cows milk as it can fill them up and stop them eating more nutritious foods. So I would just offer an ounce or two of cows milk as a drink with a solids meal if you want to, never in a bottle. Cow's milk and bottles are also bad for teeth. In the UK we are recommended to ditch bottles by 12mo although if it is breastmilk inside it isn't such an issue.