TTMA milk, please.

[jillywilly]

Our kids are turning one in just a couple months now, and I'm excited and terrified to give up formula. Our pediatrician gave us the thumbs up to switch over to whole milk basically when we run out of formula somewhere around his first birthday. I'm obviously excited to pack up the bottles and not spend a million dollars a month on formula anymore, but I'm also kind of freaked out by the transition. I'm sure my FTM is showing a LOT here, but how exactly do you do this? Just one day they're drinking bottles, and the next day you're just offering solids every day (and milk in a sippy cup)? What do you do before bed, just a cup of milk? And do you slowly start decreasing the number of bottles before hand and adding in more solid snacks, or just go cold turkey? Like, right now DS is eating three(ish) meals a day with us, and taking bottles at 7, 10, 1, 4, and 7 (roughly) - do I sub the 10:00 and 4:00 bottles for a morning and afternoon snack? He's doing fairly well on solids right now, but I'm still concerned he's not going to get enough calories if we just cut bottles, or do they just do their magic baby thing and adapt.

Please tell me I'm overthinking this and it's not as difficult as I'm trying to make it be.

[Bluedaisy]

jillywilly, THANK YOU for asking this! I was wondering too!

[gilder40]

This times a million. Tins will be one year old exactly ONE MONTH from today. I'm overwhelmed by this. I also want to stop pumping at work, but I'm not sure how to go about doing this and having enough milk for daycare.

[tiffbot]

It probably depends on your kid. With DS we just switched to milk one day and he was ok with it. But we also let him keep using a bottle for awhile after.
So, I'll be winging it with DD too. She seems to do well with sippy cups of water though so I'll try to do that. Maybe on the last thing of formula I'll start putting whole milk in her sippy cup so she gets used to it and see how that goes.

I pretty much make everything up as I go along, haha.

We're down to the last few tubs of formula too so we don't *plan* on buying more which feels crazy!

[veggiemo]

I was just going to say it totally depends on the kid. You'll just kind of go with the flow and subtract bottles as they eat more and drink more milk. It's not usually a cold turkey type of thing, but with DS1 he loved milk/food and had no interest in the bottle EVER so it didn't take long. We did the whole idea of only formula in the bottles and only milk in sippies. That worked for us.

As for this LO I'm pretty sure he's going to be on formula until he's 2.

[jillywilly]

Apr 4, 2016 12:15:56 GMT -5 @scoop said:

Apr 4, 2016 12:11:12 GMT -5 veggiemo said:

I was just going to say it totally depends on the kid. You'll just kind of go with the flow and subtract bottles as they eat more and drink more milk. It's not usually a cold turkey type of thing, but with DS1 he loved milk/food and had no interest in the bottle EVER so it didn't take long. We did the whole idea of only formula in the bottles and only milk in sippies. That worked for us.

As for this LO I'm pretty sure he's going to be on formula until he's 2.

This is how I'm feeling with my DD. She just doesn't care about food, so the idea of switching to milk at 1 is boggling my mind. I know a lot can change in 2 months, so I'm just hoping she starts eating more real food. 

That's kind of where I'm at, too - and hence my freak out over the weekend. Some days DS goes nuts for food, other days (like this weekend), he doesn't really care, but goes nuts for his bottles still - I think he ate almost 36 oz of formula on Saturday, but I don't think he could survive on the bites of food he took. That, and I'm fairly certain he'll still be wanting a bottle between 2 and 4 a.m. when he's 15, so no clue how that's going to go, because I'm also hoping to finally completely night wean him at this point if he doesn't choose to do so on his own in the next couple months.

[billyhorrible]

This was really easy for us with LBB, so I'm assuming it will be a nightmare switching BH over.

This is based on LBB:
how exactly do you do this? Just one day they're drinking bottles, and the next day you're just offering solids every day (and milk in a sippy cup)? Since we did/do BLW, our experience is probably a little different from people who do purees, but both my kids were eating solids every day at every meal long before 1. So the solids thing didn't change. I just stopped nursing before giving the solids. (With formula, you should also be giving a bottle before solids, so you would drop that) Around 11 months, we tried giving LBB WCM instead of breastmilk, to see if he would drink it or if I'd need to transition by mixing. He gulped it down, so when I ran out of frozen breastmilk, I just started giving him WCM instead.


What do you do before bed, just a cup of milk? I still nursed before bed until 21 months, but at that point DH did do a cup of milk. Which he then transitioned to a cup of water. Ideally, you don't want them drinking milk right before bed because of teeth carry/cavities. But one battle at a time, right?

And do you slowly start decreasing the number of bottles before hand and adding in more solid snacks, or just go cold turkey? I wouldn't worry about decreasing the amount of bottle beforehand. Again, it's different with nursing, but I only would nurse if he asked, and once he turned one, he really only wanted to nurse first thing in the morning and before bed. He was happy to just eat real food and drink milk with his meals. Sometimes he'd ask for milk between meals, but again, I'd just give him WCM.


If you're concerned about calories, there are a lot of great, calorie dense foods you can make sure to include in his diet - like olive oil, avocado, peanut butter, etc.

[veggiemo]

@scoop, jillywilly, I don't have much advice since this aspect is new to me as well, but what I can tell you is that eventually they will figure it out. It's not like our kids are going to be rocking formula in their lunchbox to kindergarten. I'm just attempting food every day and trying to be patient and consistent. I don't think we will be able to drop formula as fast as others on this board so remember that going into it to avoid getting too anxious and frustrated. We will get there, ladies!

[belle0720]

This has been on my mind lately too.

Is there a reason for switching from bottles to sippy cups? I'm pretty sure when we hung out with H's cousins a couple of weeks ago one of the kiddos who is like 1.5 was drinking WCM out of a bottle. They also said he drinks like 40 ounces a day and was drinking that much pumped breast milk until he was 1 too. G definitely doesn't drink that much so it surprised me and confused me more on how we'll start transitioning her.

[mirage86]

I haven't even gotten to the point of thinking of these questions. My ped said the transition is quick, usually just a couple days. Other than that, I guess my plan was just to wing it and see what E does. He still doesn't eat a ton of solids right now, but I'm hoping that will change in the next two months. He dropped quite a bit in the weight percentile between 6 and 9 months, so I feel like I'm always forcing food/milk on him when he isn't interested. If things don't change, I might introduce WCM at 1 year but transition a little more slowly.

[mrsmonogrammed]

Apr 4, 2016 12:45:57 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

This has been on my mind lately too.

Is there a reason for switching from bottles to sippy cups? I'm pretty sure when we hung out with H's cousins a couple of weeks ago one of the kiddos who is like 1.5 was drinking WCM out of a bottle. They also said he drinks like 40 ounces a day and was drinking that much pumped breast milk until he was 1 too. G definitely doesn't drink that much so it surprised me and confused me more on how we'll start transitioning her.

That is entirely too much milk!! The "ideal" is 16-20oz of milk/day (about 2 sippys worth) after 1 yr, plus meals and snacks. 40oz is a ton! The bottle to sippy cups thing is, I think, in part for convenience, and also partly for dental reasons.

[belle0720]

mrsmonogrammed Oh wow! Yeah inside I was "holy shit!"-ing just in comparison to how much G drinks now. I was amazed she was able to pump that much breast milk too especially since she said she had oversupply and donated a bunch!

They were like, "Yeah we go through gallons of [cow's] milk every week." My face probably looked like this

[erbear]

I am so happy that the end of pumping is in sight, but the idea of transitioning to WCM is scary to me, too!

[Deleted]

DS didn't have real interest in food until closer to 2 1/2. Before that he was a complete milk 'addict'. But the switch from pumped BM to cows milk went fine for us and his weight checks/growth curve always went well. We did it gradually over the course of 2-3 months. I wasn't in a rush to drop the bottle so he kept using a bottle for wake ups and bedtime until around age 2. During the day he had a straw cup and a WOW cup not sippy so we never did a sippy cup.

[Deleted]

I should add I had a similar experience to billyhorrible where I kept nursing for morning and bedtime but until 15 or 16 months but he naturally stopped showing interest in nursing during the day so I would then just give him WCM after his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I stopped pumping at work at 12 months but was able to continue the nursing a bit longer

[belle0720]

Stupid questions for moms planning to do Goat's Milk...do mainstream grocery stores like Safeway carry it or do you have to go to a store like Whole Foods? Is it more expensive than Cow's Milk? Do you drink it? I searched for it on the Safeway website and nothing came up.

[Deleted]

Apr 4, 2016 13:54:00 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

mrsmonogrammed Oh wow! Yeah inside I was "holy shit!"-ing just in comparison to how much G drinks now. I was amazed she was able to pump that much breast milk too especially since she said she had oversupply and donated a bunch!

They were like, "Yeah we go through gallons of [cow's] milk every week." My face probably looked like this

This sounds like DS. His milk intake has always been threw the roof. If he isn't drinking milk he is having milk in cereal and cheese and yogurt. He's dairy obsessed.

[belle0720]

Apr 4, 2016 14:41:10 GMT -5 @poppyc8 said:

I should add I had a similar experience to billyhorrible where I kept nursing for morning and bedtime but until 15 or 16 months but he naturally stopped showing interest in nursing during the day so I would then just give him WCM after his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I stopped pumping at work at 12 months but was able to continue the nursing a bit longer

How did your supply adjust to only nursing twice a day? I assume I'd get really engorged during the day in the beginning and then naturally adjust eventually? I'm thinking at 1 year I will cut back to pumping once a day at work and then eventually cut it out all together. I'm already getting emotional just thinking about stopping breastfeeding, I'd love to keep up morning and night nursing sessions until at least 18 months. I can't believe our babies are already almost one

[billyhorrible]

Apr 4, 2016 12:45:57 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

This has been on my mind lately too.

Is there a reason for switching from bottles to sippy cups? I'm pretty sure when we hung out with H's cousins a couple of weeks ago one of the kiddos who is like 1.5 was drinking WCM out of a bottle. They also said he drinks like 40 ounces a day and was drinking that much pumped breast milk until he was 1 too. G definitely doesn't drink that much so it surprised me and confused me more on how we'll start transitioning her.

So there are 2 main issues with bottles.

The first, is that there's a correlation between bottle usage and childhood obesity - because bottles often cause kids to overeat (combo of comfort sucking/ease of drink) which leads to the stomach stretching I posted about when we were still pregnant.  So the sooner they're off the bottle, the better.

The second issue is dental - the sucking bottle-shape changes the mouth structure.  To an extent sippy cups do this too, so eventually you'll need to switch from those to something else.

Obviously bottles are necessary.  For a majority of us, it would be impossible to feed our babies without.  But as they develop the skills to drink from other sources, the bottle becomes unnecessary - does more harm than good.  I think most pediatricians still tote the "no bottles after one" mantra, but as with everything else, this is going to vary based on child/development. (As I'm sure some of you have noticed in trying to get your kids to drink from anything other than a bottle now)

[veggiemo]

Speaking of milk: DS1 has a terrible cough right now. He was coughing while we were out on Saturday and this old woman approached me and asked if he drank milk. I said yes and she said "that's why he has that infection and cough". I was in the middle of 12 other things so I just smiled and moved on but...what did she mean?

[billyhorrible]

Apr 4, 2016 13:01:28 GMT -5 Joolschweets said:

Silly question..is WCM whole cows milk?

Yes

[billyhorrible]

Apr 4, 2016 14:44:31 GMT -5 @poppyc8 said:

Apr 4, 2016 13:54:00 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

mrsmonogrammed Oh wow! Yeah inside I was "holy shit!"-ing just in comparison to how much G drinks now. I was amazed she was able to pump that much breast milk too especially since she said she had oversupply and donated a bunch!

They were like, "Yeah we go through gallons of [cow's] milk every week." My face probably looked like this

This sounds like DS. His milk intake has always been threw the roof. If he isn't drinking milk he is having milk in cereal and cheese and yogurt. He's dairy obsessed.

This is LBB.  We also go through a gallon a week. 

[Deleted]

Apr 4, 2016 14:50:14 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

Apr 4, 2016 14:41:10 GMT -5 @poppyc8 said:

I should add I had a similar experience to billyhorrible where I kept nursing for morning and bedtime but until 15 or 16 months but he naturally stopped showing interest in nursing during the day so I would then just give him WCM after his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I stopped pumping at work at 12 months but was able to continue the nursing a bit longer

How did your supply adjust to only nursing twice a day? I assume I'd get really engorged during the day in the beginning and then naturally adjust eventually? I'm thinking at 1 year I will cut back to pumping once a day at work and then eventually cut it out all together. I'm already getting emotional just thinking about stopping breastfeeding, I'd love to keep up morning and night nursing sessions until at least 18 months. I can't believe our babies are already almost one

My supply was ok I think. I didn't get engorged by then. But I also had dropped down to pumping once a day by 9 months. I think I would pump at 12 or 1 before lunch and I would only get 10oz so I was supplementing w formula since DS needed an extra 6oz above that. So at 12 months I just started supplementing w WCM instead of the formula.

By the end of the 12th month I stopped pumping. Just so I could gradually switch to WCM during the day from BM.

Stopping nursing was so emotional for me. The last week when I knew it was ending I think I was crying in my office everyday about it. But I also thought DS was going to be our only baby so the thought of my baby all grown up made me a wreck. Luckily my coworker was a mom of 3 and she was my shoulder to cry on

[Deleted]

Apr 4, 2016 14:52:39 GMT -5 veggiemo said:

Speaking of milk: DS1 has a terrible cough right now. He was coughing while we were out on Saturday and this old woman approached me and asked if he drank milk. I said yes and she said "that's why he has that infection and cough". I was in the middle of 12 other things so I just smiled and moved on but...what did she mean?

Our pedi told us for babies and toddlers it's an urban legend that milk/dairy causes cough and congestion. But a lot of people still believe it.

[jillywilly]

Next stupid question - are straw cups supposed to be better for the mouth/teeth than the sippy cups? Right now we've been giving DS a sippy cup around meal times with just some water in it to get him used to the idea of drinking out of one. He'll hold it, get the spout in his mouth, but hasn't quite mastered the whole "tilting to get the liquid" part, he needs us to tilt it if he's going to drink anything out of the cup, so I've been debating buying a straw cup to see if that helps him. Of course, I'm guessing the straw won't eliminate the fact that it's still 1,000 times more fun to throw the cup on the ground than try drinking it for more than 10 seconds...

[belle0720]

jillywilly I have no idea if straws are better, but I've been trying to get G to use a straw and she definitely understand how to use it!

[carolyngrace]

Apr 4, 2016 14:50:14 GMT -5 belle0720 said:

Apr 4, 2016 14:41:10 GMT -5 @poppyc8 said:

I should add I had a similar experience to billyhorrible where I kept nursing for morning and bedtime but until 15 or 16 months but he naturally stopped showing interest in nursing during the day so I would then just give him WCM after his breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I stopped pumping at work at 12 months but was able to continue the nursing a bit longer

How did your supply adjust to only nursing twice a day? I assume I'd get really engorged during the day in the beginning and then naturally adjust eventually? I'm thinking at 1 year I will cut back to pumping once a day at work and then eventually cut it out all together. I'm already getting emotional just thinking about stopping breastfeeding, I'd love to keep up morning and night nursing sessions until at least 18 months. I can't believe our babies are already almost one

It's truly amazing how our bodies adjust. I only work 3 days/week. One day I just decided to wait to pump until my car ride home (instead of 2/3 way through the day like I had been). My boobs were pretty full that day, but not crazy. The next week I tried not pumping at all. So I just nursed DB when I got home. Again, pretty full, and that night I could tell they were a little uncomfortable, but nothing crazy. Now I don't pump at work at all. And on those days my boobs don't get engorged whatsoever. But on days I'm home with DB my boobs somehow have plenty of milk. Isn't that crazy? How does my body know the days of the week to produce milk?!

[carolyngrace]

Apr 4, 2016 15:01:10 GMT -5 jillywilly said:

Next stupid question - are straw cups supposed to be better for the mouth/teeth than the sippy cups? Right now we've been giving DS a sippy cup around meal times with just some water in it to get him used to the idea of drinking out of one. He'll hold it, get the spout in his mouth, but hasn't quite mastered the whole "tilting to get the liquid" part, he needs us to tilt it if he's going to drink anything out of the cup, so I've been debating buying a straw cup to see if that helps him. Of course, I'm guessing the straw won't eliminate the fact that it's still 1,000 times more fun to throw the cup on the ground than try drinking it for more than 10 seconds...

All I know is they're way easier for my LO to use. He couldn't master tipping them either (even though he can tip a bottle). He got the straw cup within a few tries. Also, he eats purees from pouches, which is the same sucking motion, which helped.

[carolyngrace]

I've been giving Oscar small amounts of cows milk already. Like a spoonful here or there, and today he took a few sips from my glass. I feel like that will help his body adjust, but that's just my thinking. Also, he never batted an eye when we switched from BM bottles to formula (after I stopped pumping) and he pretty much sucks down anything we put in front of him, so I'm not too worried.

[sugarkissed]

With DD1 we gradually started introducing her to milk at around 11 months. She LOVED it and was easily weaned from breastfeeding just after her first birthday. My plan was to do the same with DD2, but as June approaches I'm reconsidering how long I'll nurse her. I'm not sure that I'm emotionally ready to wean her... haha.

She won't take a bottle, but loves having water from sippy cups so I'm not concerned about that part.... we'll just skip bottles altogether.