Moving up to milk
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- August
- 6
We’re coming up on a major milestone in our house this week—JD will be 1 tomorrow! And that means starting the transition from formula to milk. Our pediatrician’s office recommends making the transition over a couple of weeks, starting by mixing 3/4 of formula with 1/4 whole milk. As long as there aren’t any adverse reactions (diarrhea), they recommended slowly decreasing the amount of formula and increasing the amount of milk.
Nobody in our family has a milk allergy, so I’m not anticipating any major problems, but I plan to start this over the weekend so I can keep an eye on the little guy.
The other thing I thought was interesting was that the doctor’s office recommends giving whole milk only until about 15 to 18 months. And my sister-in-law’s pediatrician told her to skip whole milk entirely and go straight to 2%. Anybody else get similar advice from their pediatrician?
And since we’re making transitions, I need to dump the baby bottles and start introducing JD to a cup. We’ve already tried a sippy cup and it didn’t go over very well. I think he was too frustrated when the liquid didn’t come out fast enough. (That’s my guess since he flung the cup across the room from his high chair!) However, he’s done well with the straws in juice boxes so I’m going to try a cup with a straw.
I’d be curious to know how others have handled the transition to milk and a cup. Were your kids frustrated with cups? How long did it take to get used to a cup?
(Isn’t the cow cute?)
Photos by Vincent DiSalvio and Elizabeth Orozco
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm by Tracey Princiotta.
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Rafael refused sippy cups at first for that reason. Would only drink from “real” cups. But we’d only put a very little bit in these cups, so eventually he accepted the sippy cup. We tried different ones, ones with straws and ones with the standard mouthpieces and now they both drink from regular-type sippy cups. Each little one has his own preferences in that respect, so you’ll see how it goes. Congrats! (The day you can remove all the bottles from the house is very exciting.)
Oh, and as for whole milk vs lowfat; Rafael’s very skinny, and we’re still giving him whole milk. I see no reason to stop. The pediatricians have been OK with that. I don’t see any reason that a child who’s eating healthy for the most part needs to drink lowfat milk.
My ped had me start my boys on whole milk..& keep them on it until they were 2…I used to even get whole milk yogurt for them…they were all tiny guys…5-10th percentile babies…as for the sippy cups..I agree with Amy..it’s a personal preference…just keep offering different ones..then stock up !
I just made the transition to milk and I just gave my boy a sippy with milk to see his reaction. He was fine with it so I never had to do the mixing. But, since he was a preemie and very small at birth, he has 2 bottles (morning and night) with the toddler formula. For meals and inbetween, he’s got a sippy with milk. My doctor said that you might not be able to take away the night bottle until they are old enough to reason with why you are taking away the bottle. It depends on the kid.
There are some new studies about kids with a family history of diabetes and obesity and how they should skip right to 2%. With all the good things that I’ve heard about why kids need whole milk, I am going to stick with it as long as possible.
Good luck with the transition.