How do i stop formula and introduce milk?

[laura109]

Hi ladies my lg is almost 11 months. She still has 7 oz in the morning and 7oz at bedtime and around 11pm shes still having 4oz. Some nights she does not wake for the 4oz. I am starting to think about her having formula out a beaker but im also thinking about changing her bedtime bottle when shes one too cows milk. She falls asleep in her cot taking her last feed so taking that feed from her will cause crying and possibly ruin her settling for bed. Ive given her a few sips of cows milk as a drink in the day and shes not that thrilled by it. I had it in my head that she would just start drinking warm milk and eventually it would go in a beaker. Any advice on how to make this change. As they advise you to have them off bottles by 12 months and formula its time to start something. Thanks in advance x

 

[MindUtopia]

We started by switching out half of one bottle of formula with milk (so mixing the two), then the following week switching that one bottle to fully cow's milk, and so on, switching one bottle over to cow's milk roughly each week until they were all cow's milk. At that age, she had 4 bottles a day and none during the night, so it took about 5-6 weeks in total. I would pick one thing to change - either formula to cow's milk or bottles to cups - and tackle that first and leave the other to tackle when things settle down. We started to make the transition at 11 months and were totally on cow's milk by 12 months. We started to introduce a cup for one feed a day instead of a bottle at 13 months. Before that she just wasn't ready and completely refused, but then one day she just happily took it and it was fine from there on. Toddlers should still have about 500ml a day of milk or its equivalent, so you'll still be offering milk for awhile. My almost 3 year old still has 250 ml of milk in a cup at bedtime and a bit more here and there during the day.

 

[geordiemoo]

With DD1 we just went cold turkey! The health visitor said she was eating well enough to stop formula so we did. She only had one 9oz bottle a day at bedtime though and because that was all she was having and it helped her sleep we kept the bottle until she was 2. She had water/juice in cups the rest of the day but if I put milk in cups she wouldn't have anything and she's not a great drinker anyway. They do say to get rid of bottles after 12 months but I do think thats more for children sucking away at a ottle all day every day, I don't think one bottle a day a problem, especially when it was drunk in one go pretty much.