Why move to cow's milk?

[Smiler82]

I swear I already posted this but has vanished...!

Aaanyway - just wondering WHY do we switch kids to cow's milk? In what way is it better than formula? The obvious benefit to me is it'll save us some money, but how does it benefit LO? I just worry for the days when he doesn't eat much, it makes me feel better knowing he is at least getting the right nutrients from his formula.

I've tried googling but the only info I can find is about when to introduce cow's milk, but zero information about why you should do it.

Am I worrying too much on the days he doesn't eat?

Thanks!

 

[MindUtopia]

In part because it's cheaper and it tastes nicer than formula. But for us, the main reason was that cow's milk was a real, whole food and something we eat as a family. We generally don't feed her special foods that are just for her. She eats what we eat and since we don't drink formula, I couldn't justify the added expense of feeding her a processed food that wasn't natural just because some marketing team said we should. There's no benefit to formula after a year. Kids can get all the nutrients they need from cow's milk, food and a vitamin supplement for added vitamin D (recommended up to age 5 anyway). There is also some evidence that growing up milks are related to tooth decay as they're more sugary than cow's milk. They aren't 'bad' if you are good about tooth brushing and don't feed other sugary drinks/snacks, but they aren't necessary either. But really for us, it was that we wanted to just have her eating and drinking the same sorts of things we do as a family and I couldn't justify the added expense when there was no benefit.

 

[Smiler82]

Thank you I've never heard that there's no benefit to formula after a year. A group of us with babies the same age were talking about the switch to cow's milk and none of us knew if formula was better/the same/worse than cow's milk and I thought a quick Google would answer me in no time, but I couldn't find anything other than when to switch. That's really my only concern - making sure he gets the right nutrients. I'll finish the tub we've just opened and leave it.

 

[Pearls18]

I would worry about the sweetness in formula after a year, I think it's sweet? But that said as we have a prescribed milk we will probably have to carry it on as I don't think almond milk etc will be sufficient, but yeah with ds1 it was about the money haha.

 

[Pearls18]

Oh and yeah formula is just made up of things you can get in food, breastfeeding is still beneficial due to the antibodies and so forth which is why that is recommended longer.

 

[liz1985]

As long as your lo is having a healthy, varied diet they just dont need formula after age 1. They will get everything they need from their food. If your worried your lo isn't getting everything they need from food yet then you could carry on with formula for a while, but if they are cows milk is alot cheaper and easier.

 

[Smiler82]

Thanks everyone Just so baffled as to why all the articles about switching to cow's milk I've seen don't explicitly say why it's better to make the change. He is generally very good with food but there are days when he either won't eat very much or will only eat bread! It's those days that worry me but maybe it's not as big a deal as I think it is

 

[Miss_Cellany]

I'm not 100% sure but my SIL got told off by her health visitor for giving her LO formula after 12 months - I think it was because the HV was worried about over-eating and gaining too much weight.

 

[noon_child]

I don't know that this is right but it occurred to me that because formula is an entire meal (designed to give all the protein, fat, nutrients that a child needs) that carrying on past age one might restrict a child's appetite for food and be a barrier to eating meals. Especially as the older they get the more formula you have to use to get the right concentrations of nutrients (whereas in breast milk the nutrient mix changes without the volume necessarily increasing so bf babies are still hungry for food).

I assume that buying cows milk plus a vitamin drop is cheaper than formula but I don't know. I'd definitely recommend a vitamin drop if you do swap though, as my (bf) daughter has a vit D deficiency caused by me repeatedly being told by midwives and HVs that neither me or LO needed a supplement because of our good diet and extremely fair skin. WRONG - we just live too far North to not take a supplement of vit D.