Stopping Formula at 12 months

[redneckhippy]

My son will be a year in 3 weeks and I would like to transition him completely off formula. He eats well and is breastfed when he wakes up and in the evening, but gets formula for most of his liquid at this point. Should I start mixing his bottles with part formula part milk? How do I go about weaning him from formula.

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

DD self-weaned off bottles on her own by 13 months. I just made sure to offer sippies from early on to get her used to them, and she started dropping bottles in favor of a sippy at 10 months. I didn't mix the two; just offered either formula or milk in the sippies (with the milk starting after 12 months).

 

[MindUtopia]

Yes, we started doing exactly that, mixing one bottle with maybe half cow's milk and half formula. I did that for maybe a week. Then the following week, made that bottle all cow's milk. Did that for a week. The following week, I switched another formula bottle for cow's milk and did that for a week. We did it nice and slowly as I wanted to avoid too much tummy disruption. I think we switched fully on to cow's milk over about 6 weeks. It was really smooth and my daughter loved cow's milk so much more than formula, so it was an easy transition.

 

[redneckhippy]

did you find your baby slept less when you switched? We always sort of stack bottles in the evening to make sure he is full for the night. Also did you find much weight loss after weaning? My LO mostly eats veggies so I'm worried about how he will get enough calories without formula.

 

[Kitteh_Kat]

No to both, but she has always slept through the night since 5 weeks old, and has always been on the smaller side. I didn't notice any difference in her post-bottles. Still plenty of calories in whole milk!

 

[george83]

I mixed formula with cows milk for each feed and gradually increased the amount of cows milk over a couple of weeks until it was all cows milk (for example week 1 - 6oz formula + 1oz cows milk, week 2 - 4oz formula + 3 oz cows milk). swapping milk didn't change their sleeping patterns but none of mine have ever been good sleepers to begin with

 

[redneckhippy]

I guess I'm a little more concerned because my son is allergic to milk protein and soy and the milk substitutes are lower calorie and fat.