Q&A: introducing cows' milk

Becky writes:

"I have a 11 month old daughter and I am still breatfeeding her, she has never had formula and I would like to start introducing whole milk.  I am a working mother, but am very luck to work at a job that has a daycare facility for its employees.  I use to pump 2 to 3 times a day in my office and freeze my milk, I would go and feed my daughter on my lunch.  Now that she is eating so many types of food we have eliminated pumping and she only nurses 4 times morning 5 or 6 am, afternoon, when we get home 6 pm and before bed at 9:30.  She sleeps the whole night and I am working on dropping the 6 pm feeding time.  She is fine with a bottle; she gets it at daycare with my frozen breastmilk.  But how do I start introducing whole milk.  Do I slowly add to her bottles with my frozen milk and can I just start giving her milk?  Help !!!!"

How you introduce it is going to depend on your daughter's personality. If she's the kind of kid who really doesn't like change, then you should probably mix a little cows' milk with her bottle of your milk, gradually increasing the ratio of cows' milk to your milk until she's only taking cows' milk from a bottle and is only getting your milk when she actually nurses. (And obviously you know this, but I feel I should point out that you can keep nursing her as long as you want to, even if it's only once a day, in addition to the cows' milk she drinks. Or you can gradually replace one nursing session at a time with a bottle of cows' milk.)

If she's fine with change and trying new things, then I'd seize the moment to begin the process of migrating from bottle to cup by giving her cows' milk in a cup instead of a bottle. That way by the time she's off bottles of breastmilk she'll also be off the bottle in general.

Let me interject that I think it's asinine that so many parents are told here in the U.S. that their kids need to be off the bottle by 12 months. Why? There's no reason for it, assuming the child isn't falling asleep every night with a bottle. If a bottle brings your kid comfort, then keep using it until the kid doesn't need it anymore. I've said it before and I'll probably say it another 500 times, but college applications won't ask at what age your kid was off the bottle or the pacifier, so give your kid what s/he needs right now.

But back to Becky. If you want to introduce cows' milk as a separate, new thing, I'd give it to her cold (since you're far more likely to have cold milk at any given time in the future than warm milk) and in either a sippy cup or a straw cup (straw cups tend to be a little easier for younger kids to learn--Melissa left the ur-method for teaching kids to drink from a straw in this comment to an earlier post). Then gradually have your daycare providers switch in a cup of milk for each bottle of breastmilk she's been taking. Take as long as she needs, and it should be a pretty eventless (although perhaps long and gradual) process.

Oh, and she might not like cows' milk. Some kids don't. Kids in some whole cultures and ethnic groups don't ever drink cows' milk. Neither my brother nor I have ever liked cows' milk, in fact. As long as we have other sources of calcium and get plenty of water and other fluids, it's totally fine. So if she doesn't like cows' milk don't worry about it. You could try other calcium-fortified milk-like liquids (soy milk, rice milk, oatmeal milk, etc.) or you could just let it go, get her drinking water, and make sure she has plenty of other calcium-rich foods offered to her over the course of the week.

Good luck. I hope you and she have fun with this transition.

Comments

[Kelly]

Thanks for asking this Becky. I've been wondering as well, since my babe is breastfed and has never taken to formula. (Believe me, I tried it though, just to see if she'd give me a longer stretch at night.)

I'm hoping she digs cows milk since I'm slightly eager to wean. I enjoy the nursing relationship, but I'm prone to mastitis (3 times in 9 months). Feeling that ill with two little ones is a nightmare.

Good luck. I'm guessing that your little one will like it. Whole milk is like a dessert, so thick and subtly sweet.

And I like Moxie's advice about giving it cold. (Especially since you don't want to have to warm up every cup of milk from this day forward.)

[Carrie]

As you slowly introduce cows' milk, keep an eye on the diapers. I eat tons of dairy and my son never had a problem with my milk. He also took a cows' milkd-based formula without issue, but when it was time to wean to milk, he had horrible loose stool and accompanying diaper rash. Since I was introducing it slowly, I did not put two and two together right away and the kid suffered with the rash and the loose stool far too long. I have also heard that milk constipates some children. So, keep an eye on it. It probably won't be an issue, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Meira]

I'm trying to push whole milk because my twins really need to be getting fat & nutrients from everything thing that goes in there stomach. But they seem to prefer water, which worries me that they'll feel full and be less likely to snack. I figure the fact that they are nursing 5-6 times a day at 16 mos is a safety net. Anyway, my ped said that breasfed babies can take longer to like cow's milk, so if you're determined to do it, keep trying.

[Christine]

Max had been exclusively breastfed and once we started milk he weaned himself pretty much overnight. I actually tried to keep going for a little bit, but he was just done with it.

And, Moxie, thanks for the bottle info. I plan on lying at Max's next ped appointment. He gets a bottle before bed and he sleeps through the night. We're not messing with that.

[Kate]

Meira, my 2 year old drinks water all day long (milk only in cereal) and it doesn't prevent her from snacking. Quite the opposite! She asks to snack ALL DAY LONG!

She was off dairy entirely from 11-18 months. There is plenty of fat and nutrients available from other sources.

[boxing octopus]

My Harry weaned himself from the bottle (he refused breastmilk AND formula from the Avent nipple!) at about 10.5 months or so. I started offering rice and soy milk around 11.5 months and he refused it. I threw up my hands and just started giving him lots of yogurt, cheese, and the occasional dish of vanilla ice cream.

Fast forward to yesterday, when a girl his age at day care was drinking cow's milk in her sippy. Harry BEGGED for it. The sitter gave him some in a sippy and he LOVED it. And here I was thinking he would reject it outright. Turns out I'm not so smart.

[Gretchen]

Another recommendation - go one feeding at a time - meaning give milk once a day or so, and gradually increase over time.

I agree with the sippy/straw cup idea verus putting it in a bottle. And cold too...

Good luck!

[KLynn]

My little guy was a preemie (3lbs 9oz) and never nursed very well, so I pumped for 11 1/2 months. When I asked the pediatrician about weaning him (pumping was getting more and more difficult, time, supply, etc.) he said to introduce cow's milk slowly and watch for any stomach upset. Apparently if cow's milk is introduced before the stomach is developed enough, it can cause serious problems. If your pediatrician is cool with it, I say just offer the milk and see what happens.

Anyway, we ended up transitioning to a sippy (Nuby) cup at about the same time, and he took to it just fine. I honestly believe that the weaning was more for me tapering off the pumping to minimize the discomfort and risk of mastitis.

As far as bottle/paci goes, the main impetus to wean those is to keep from having dental problems.

Oh, and btw, I still have a nearly-new, one-user Medela PISA that I need to unload. Hrmmm...maybe I should ebay it...

[Jen]

Just a point of warning - here in the UK they strongly recommend that you do not introduce cow's milk until 12 months, due to the fact that introducing it before then can exacerbate dairy intolerance and allergies. It's only a month to wait, but may be beneficial in the long run :)

[Laura]

I was surprised to see this question being asked. Maybe I live in an especially progressive area of the nation but with all of the information about dairy and children I wouldn't think that anyone would actually *want* to offer it to their children.

I found a few paragraphs of info in a quick internet search:

There are many opinions that have tried to alert the public to the dangers of milk and dairy products. Benjamin Spock, M.D., announced that cow's milk is inappropriate for children below the age of 1 because children react negatively to bovine hormones. In the years preceding his death, Dr. Spock created quite a controversy by criticizing milk. After 50 years of telling parents that milk was a near perfect food, Spock made a 180-degree turn. After Spock's analyses, the American Academy of Pediatrics reexamined milk issues and withdrew their endorsement of whole cow's milk for infants on the basis that iron in milk cannot be properly absorbed. The final version of Dr. Spock's best selling book recommends that no human eat milk and dairy products from cows.

Neal D. Barnard, M.D., author of "Food For Life" and director of Washington-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, made stronger statements. Barnard believes that consumption of cow's milk is
totally inappropriate for humans. The scientific literature is filled with evidences of the inadequacy of cow's milk for human nutrition. According to Barnard: "There is no nutritional requirement for dairy products, and there are serious problems that can result from the proteins, sugar, fat and contaminants in milk products."

In Dr. Fuhrman's book Disease-Proof Your Child, Dr. Fuhrman presents studies linking diseases to cow's milk that including: allergies, anal fissures, childhood-onset (Type 1) diabetes, chronic constipation, Crohn's disease, ear infections, heart attacks, multiple sclerosis, and prostate cancer.

Cow's milk has gotten a ton of negative press in the past decade or so. I agree with Moxie that there are plenty of calcium-rich foods available to offer a child without having to resort to cow's milk.

[Foster]

Ugh, Im so sick of the anti-dairy bullshit. People all over the world (NOT just Americans, as many anti-dairy folk like to profess) have been drinking all sorts of milk since the day they discovered that it tasted good, AND THEY ARE FINE.

"Let me interject that I think it's asinine that so many parents are told here in the U.S. that their kids need to be off the bottle by 12 months. Why?"

Because a kid that can walk and drinks from a bottle looks stupid, thats why. They look way too old. Same as a kid who is walking and talking and still sucking away on a junk-ass pacifier. Same as a four-year-old who still uses a sippy cup.

Now, I must leave you and go form some more opinions.

[carabeth]

Foster, I know I base my parenting choices on how other people think it looks, certainly not whether the children are happy and content and I am stressed or not. (!) And yes people all over the world and all through history have been drinking milk, but not in the quantities we are told we need, and not only cow's milk and not laced with antiobiotics and growth hormones.

[Foster]

Carabeth, I totally agree w/ you about the antibiotics and hormones, but I am drinking a Pepsi right now, so you can draw your own conclusions from there..

Which leads me to this: one can of soda is 12oz. One serving of milk is 8oz, which, to me, is v small. I am not capable of understanding how 3 8oz servings is a lot, esp in light of how many 12oz cans (or 20oz bottles, omg) of soda a person may drink in one day. Not that it is possible to stand milk and soda side-by-side, but a full days worth of milk is only 4oz more than ONE soda. Just doesnt seem like much milk to me.

PLEASE dont read that as me wanting to start a milk debate b/c I DONT. Im tired of defending (responibly raised) milk and meat and hearing about how Im going to die of colon cancer. Im just saying thats why I dont see 3 glasses as a lot. kthx.

[Becky Harris]

Being on a bottle for too long can cause speech problems/delays as I unfortunately experienced firsthand with my youngest son. Poor muscle tone in the mouth. This is not to say you should toss the bottles the minute your child hits one. Just be aware.

[erika]

Question: what are some other good sources of calcium if you don't want to introduce cow's milk? Also, if there are digestive issues with cow's milk, why are cheese and yogurt recommended?

[Shandra]

I just wanted to chime in with a few things, even though it's really late. I'm obsessed with calcium because my mother has severe osteoporosis.

If it's the antibiotics and hormones that bother any parent you can probably source milk from a more organics-practicing source, which has the benefit of encouraging those practices. Here in the Toronto area it costs almost exactly twice regular milk - but is still cheaper than quality soy and goat's milk.

I had trouble tolerating cow's milk until I was about 10. Yoghurt and cheese were okay though; probably the lactose is more broken down or present in different ratios. I wish there had been more frozen yoghurt available then. :-)

Part of the trick for absorbing calcium is that you need some vitamin D - going outside in the sun for 5-10 without sunblock as long as you're not in a northern climate should help produce enough, but you may also want to be sure to include some foods with vitamin d added when you have calcium - for example, a whole-wheat pasta with vitamin d added tossed with broccoli is better than just the broccoli.

You can look for calcium-fortified products like orange juice (careful on the sugar there though; my doctor is pretty anti-juice for that reason) and breakfast cereals. Salmon, especially with the bones (the canned kind all mashed up with the smaller bones) is a good source although I'd be careful about quantities and use wild salmon because of PCB content in farmed.

Green leafy vegetables help too, as do a lot of beans - chickpeas, navy beans, pinto beans (you can mash up the beans to make dips or burrito type things; we don't give my son hummus yet 'cause of the tahini (sesame) but I'm looking forward to the day). Calcium-processed tofu is good. And blackstrap molasses have calcium, so I try to bake with it.

Down the road almonds have calcium too. We plan to use almond butter instead of peanut butter, assuming he doesn't have any nut allergies, when we get into the sandwich-lunch years.

[crohns disease]

No immediate cure for crohns yet exists. The symtoms can of course be alleviated by altering the diet and with the use of nature. Crohns can be controlled without drugs, which just bury the symptoms under a cloud of drowsiness.