Transitioning to cow's milk

[underwaterrhymes]

frkls
papie

So, K turns one in about 3 weeks.

This alone is blowing my mind.

I'm still breastfeeding him. He nurses a few times a day and also gets bottles of expressed milk a few times a day, especially on days he's at daycare.

First issue: I know it's best to move away from bottles once they're one. K does fine with his sippy cups of water, but if I give him sippy cups of breast milk, I don't think he'd get the amount that he's used to getting during the day at daycare. He usually only does drink about 8 - 12 ounces there anyway, but that is because we have not been successful at night weaning yet. He still nurses once in the middle of the night.

Advice here? It seems like cavities are the concern with bottles, but K doesn't carry his bottle around.

Second issue: Is it even really necessary to transition to cow's milk yet? Can we just stick with breast milk until we're ready to wean? Or do I need to do both?

I've been googling this and it seems like KellyMom and the like are of one opinion and other sites are of another.

What did you do with regard to this?

[ax2]

We did the milk transition first, then worried about bottles later. A took really well to milk, we did part WM and part BM upping the WM, I think the whole transition took about 2 weeks.

We worried about eliminating bottles around 15 months and went cold turkey. I just upped his yogurt and cheese to make up for getting a bit less milk.

[alzi]

My plan is to slowly add WM to her bottles. I'll worry about taking away bottles later, bc she doesn't have that many at this point.

[hymen]

I don't think you need to transition right away. We did early (around 10.5 months) with doctor's approval because I wasn't pumping enough by then and didn't want to switch to formula for a month. I just pumped what I could and then topped the bottles off with WCM. I still nursed until he was 13 months. We used bottles until he was fully weaned and then just switched exclusively to sippy cups. He didn't seem to have any problems with the transition.

[daisyheadmaizie]

I would just start giving a sippy of whole milk with meals. Don't push it and just let him start getting used to it, drinking what he wants. Do water in his sippy the rest of the time. And, then when your ready you can start dropping nursing or pumping sessions. As you drop a nursing session, you can offer the sippy of milk if you want. Keep the whole milk and bottles separate. You will find over the next few months that his eating of real food starts really amping up and nursing starts to become more for comfort. This is the approach I took with both kids and it has worked well for me. DS is down to just a nursing session before bed and has dropped each of his other nursing session's easily. He had no interest in whole milk to begin with, but he slowly started drinking a little here and there. Now, he drinks it no problem.

[sillygoosegirl]

When you transition to cow's milk, make sure it's full fat. It's important for brain development.

[underwaterrhymes]

Mar 2, 2014 11:00:02 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

When you transition to cow's milk, make sure it's full fat. It's important for brain development.

Yes, we definitely will.

I want to continue to breast feed until at least 18 months if we can, though. Whole milk would be merely supplemental until then.

[underwaterrhymes]

Mar 2, 2014 11:08:56 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

I had a huge freezer stash, so we didn't do WCM until we moved and I didn't want the hassle of trying to figure out how to transport all of that frozen BM. He was about 20 months.

The bottle thing was totally separate... we'd give BM in his sippy cup when he started trying solids at 6mo. I think he was totally off the bottle around 9-10mo. Part of the concern is not only cavities, but past around 12mo. it's much harder to get them to give it up.

ETA: You can mix some WCM into BM, gradually increasing the ratio of WCM to get him used to the taste.

Oh good! Am I reading correctly you didn't give cow milk until 20 months?

[underwaterrhymes]

Sweet! Thanks!

[liverandonions]

We were no longer breast feeding but I would add an ounce of wcm to her formula and then another and another after about a week each time until she was fully on milk. Then one day I just took away all of her daytime bottles-she wasn't great drinking milk from a cup but I just forced the issue and it only took a couple of days before she was drinking from a cup no problem. I just made sure to give her food right away when she woke up and then just last week I dropped her night bottle and we never had any issues.