confused about follow on....

[NIfirsttimer]

Ruby was fed EBM until recently, and has been fully on aptamil first for several weeks now... no probs with the switch over & shes continuing to put on weight at the same rate as before. We hope to BLW at 6 months, but im confused about what happens to her milk then.. do we stay on aptamil first until she comes off formula, or swith to the follow on at 6 m? i was looking at it today insainsburys and it says ; from 6m, to complement weaning' which makes it sound like she should switch then?
what does everyone else do & why, and whats the difference between them?

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Follow on has more iron in it. So basically they have to drink smaller volumes in order to get the same amount of nutrients. I asked my HV and she said the need for it was invented by the formula companies and it is completely unnecessary for most babies.

Even though we are BLW and Ruby literally only eats a few bites of solids a day I haven't switched, I hate messing about with her milk unnecessarily when she's happy on it, plus she's on hungry baby so I'd worry follow on would be less filling for her.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Plus just wanna say how amazing I think it is how long you kept going expressing!

 

[faille]

As Claire says, follow on has more iron but it isn't a neccesity, stage 1 is perfectly fine too.


We switched to follow on as we're doing BLW as well and I'm not confident that she's getting enough iron from her food and I'm not sure whether our diet actually has a lot of iron in it. Iron in formula form can't cause issues like constipation etc so there's no worry about them having too much iron if you switch to follow on.

 

[NIfirsttimer]

Plus just wanna say how amazing I think it is how long you kept going expressing!

awhh thanks! exclusively expressing is HARRRRDDDDD work, but i was lucky in that i had a fast & plentiful supply, so i found it about as easy as it can be, which was a relief!
i think i would ultimatly have preffered to directly breastfeed, but Ruby wasnt having it (maybe its something in the name lol) so for us it was the next best thing. i did combine feed for several weeks before i stopped tho, which was a lot easier as there was a lot less pressure!

thanks for your advice girls.. i hate how these companies just invent random products and try to trick people into thinking they need to use them!
Ruby, so far, does great on the first one, so i think we will just stick with it!

can they have too much iron?

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

I think they can have too much iron. But as Faille says, the iron in formula is very difficult to absorb so it would be extremely difficult to get too much from it. Although there is less iron in BM it is very easily absorbed. You got the BLW bible? It is great for explaining stuff like this...

 

[NatalieW]

Iron is uneasy to absorb so you need to add some vitamin C foods into her diet when giving high iron foods.

I didn't swap at 6months, first milk is fine if having varied diet.

You can get fortified iron cereals like wheatbix and ReadyBrek which are fine to give to babies at 6months.

 

[suzib76]

Follow on has more iron in it. So basically they have to drink smaller volumes in order to get the same amount of nutrients. I asked my HV and she said the need for it was invented by the formula companies and it is completely unnecessary for most babies.

Even though we are BLW and Ruby literally only eats a few bites of solids a day I haven't switched, I hate messing about with her milk unnecessarily when she's happy on it, plus she's on hungry baby so I'd worry follow on would be less filling for her.

i agree 100% my 2 never had a follow on milk as they were more than happy with the milk they were on

 

[x-Rainbow-x]

Theres not much difference in the formula's really - my HV said that the stage 3 has more of a vanilla taste.

We changed over to stage three a couple of weeks ago when alex was 7 months , more for cost purposes, milk companies can advertise stage three milk so can also give money off vouchers so we get £1 of every carton we buy because of the vouchers we saved.

 

[suzib76]

Theres not much difference in the formula's really - my HV said that the stage 3 has more of a vanilla taste.

We changed over to stage three a couple of weeks ago when alex was 7 months , more for cost purposes, milk companies can advertise stage three milk so can also give money off vouchers so we get £1 of every carton we buy because of the vouchers we saved.

funny you should mention the advertising thing, it has been said that the follow on milks etc are around as a method around the advertising ban

they are heavily advertoised, but not as a need certainly, more as a way to put the brand out there

 

[x-Rainbow-x]

Theres not much difference in the formula's really - my HV said that the stage 3 has more of a vanilla taste.

We changed over to stage three a couple of weeks ago when alex was 7 months , more for cost purposes, milk companies can advertise stage three milk so can also give money off vouchers so we get £1 of every carton we buy because of the vouchers we saved.

funny you should mention the advertising thing, it has been said that the follow on milks etc are around as a method around the advertising ban

they are heavily advertoised, but not as a need certainly, more as a way to put the brand out there

i totally agree with that

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

So do I. I'd never thought of that before, but it totally makes sense.

 

[Mum2b_Claire]

Plus, they say 'not intended to replace breastfeeding' on the ads. That's silly IMO, that's like saying no babies over 6m would ever be BF.