Am I mean stopping my baby's afternoon milk!?

[jennyh]

Hi wise forumites

My daughter is nearly 14 months and I am in the process of cutting out her afternoon milk. She currently has around 6oz in the morning and 7oz at night and has been having another 5oz after her nap for as long as I can remember. When she wakes from her nap she is rarely rested enough (impossible to get her back to sleep!) so she is usually upset and the milk is a pacifier for her and comforts her, after which hey presto she is perfectly happy. She genuinely seems hungry around this time so we started giving her a bit of fruit instead with mixed results, some days she is happy with that, other days she is upset and wants milk. I cant say categorically if it makes any difference whether she will eat her tea, haven't seen any evidence either way that she eats more/less depending on whether she has the milk.

Today I dropped her off at nursery and they were surprised that I had stopped her milk and said that she will get really upset when she sees the other children having bottles after their nap. Made me feel really guilty!!! I know that she is upset when she wakes up as she is still tired and I am sure that the staff rely on the milk to calm her in the same way that I do sometimes.

What does everyone think? I don't want her to sit there feeling upset obviously but if she should still have a little milk then perhaps that is a compromise. I have asked them to give her some snacks (raisins, biscuit etc) She usually has milk with her cereal and then a yoghurt each day, plus some cheese most days so I think she is reaching the top intake.

I dunno, the nursery staff threw me a curveball there!!! What does everyone else do with this age, particularly those at nursery???

[echo]

My little one was still b/fed at this age and she drank at least 2/3 pints of cows milk per day! She drank loads of milk until at least 2.5 and now at 3 3/4 drinks very little.

My belief is if baby wants it she should have it, although I am very, very child led on this one as I'm a BLW'er

Why do you not want her to have milk?

[Monkey]

She's still little. If having milk with her friends makes her happy, i would continue. My nearly three year old is still drinking gallons of milk everyday. We now cut it with water but hardly ever did until she turned two.

My daughter has been at nursery since she was four months. I have always gone with their advice which has been consistently good. It's also good for the kids to all follow the same routine to avoid them becoming upset.

[jennyh]

It isn't that I don't really want her to have the milk, more that I was under the impression that she shouldn't be having/didnt need to have so much milk at this age (based on friends with babies of the same/similar age). I was also interested to see whether she would eat any more tea. At nursery they give her tea between 3-4pm so she was rarely finishing the food because she had just had milk (they did admit to me a while ago that the babies who do have milk don't usually eat much tea as the timings clash a bit).

Also when at home with me she has been ok without having the milk for a few days recently so I felt quite confident that she wasn't missing it, there were only a couple of days when she only slept for 45 mins after her lunch so the milk helped settle her. I felt ok about it until I dropped her off today and they questionned it.

I appreciate your opinions about continuing with it, I think that I might wait and see what they say when I pick her up this eve and if it was a real problem and she was very upset then I can rethink it for tomorrow. I agree about routine etc and she has alwasy responded well to knowing what to expect and when, its just I want her diet to be mixed and if she is having more milk and less nutritious food because she is full then I just thought it was wise to question it...hmmmm...

[Mathilda]

Hi, my daughter is 14 months, she has 100ml in the morning (3 1/2 oz), 100ml in the afternoon and 200ml at bedtime. She is at the same nursery as your LO I think and rarely eats much of her tea there so has tea later at home. Ideally I would prefer if she didn't have any milk in the afternoon and the balance was a little more towards food, but she loves her milk and does eat well. Could you just cut the afternoon one down? No advice really just wanted to say am thinking along the same lines.

[hellosailor]

Hi Jennyh,

I know we've spoken about this before! I have cut down Mini Sailor's to the same as Mathilda has with her daughter, and her appetite for solids has improved hugely (for now, ha, see how complacent I got there!)

Personally I feel that your instinct about it being preferable for her to eat tea rather than be too full for tea because she has had milk an hour or so earlier, is right..some babies seems to have appetites big enough for loads of milk and still room for 3 meals, but others - as it seems to have turned out with mine - just aren't as interested in eating if they have a fair bit of milk. When she turned 1 I cut milk down from 20oz/600ml a day to about 12-13oz/360-390ml a day (though she has a fromage frais every day too and cheese etc on top) and her appetite for lunch and tea is so much better.

When I was wondering about cutting back on milk when she got to 12 months and the thinking behind it, a midwife friend of mine said that basically you're trying to tip the balance of food intake and nutrition increasingly towards food rather than milk, as of course in a while they will just be having food and not milk, and shifting this balance is hard to encourage unless you cut back on milk when they turn 1, which made perfect sense to me.

Having said that, if she is upset as she likes the comfort of it, could she just have a token amount like 60ml so that she still felt she was having her bottle after her nap but not actually filling up so much before tea?

xx

[Bumpkin]

I cut out my baby's afternoon milk at 9 months as was still b/feeding and had had enough of doing it in public with a 9 month old at that time and had seen enough advice saying they didn't need it at that stage. He was always grumpy after an afternoon nap so I'd get some fruit / raisins into him fairly soon after he woke up and then he was fine. I don't think they need afternoon milk at 14 months although no expert. I personally don't suscribe to 'if baby wants it they should get it' as they are totally creatures of habit and would carry on forever with some things if you let them. He didn't miss it at all from what I remember, I thought at the time that it was better to get into eating more veg / fruit / protein and he always seems to have eaten well at meal times. Everyone has different views, but I'd go with what you think and don't feel mean, your baby will be fine if you're happy with the decision.

[Amy_W]

Hiya. I'm still giving A his afternoon milk. He usually guzzles that one in seconds. If you wanted to cut down, how about taking a bit off all the feeds so she has less but still gets a bottle at the same times? however I agree that she'll be fine without and you're certainly not mean for cutting it out.

[emza78]

Hi all,

I had the same problem a few months ago- health visitor said we should be cutting out the afternoon milk but nursery said she'd feel bad when she saw the others having it. I got around it by making up a bottle of squash for post nap instead. After a few weeks LO started to cut this out naturally and I was then told its fine as the ones who don't have the post nap drink go straight downstairs to play anyway. I didn't notice any of it affecting her (very large) appetite!

[Saffron]

Well, my daughter is is 27 months, and she still has milk in the afternoon! I do 50/50 with warm water, as she mostly just likes a warm bottle to hold. As others have said, a lot depends on your child and how she eats/sleeps etc otherwise. I thought the upper limit on milk in take was fairly large, though can't now remember. In any event, milk is a dietary construct. How much one should/shouldn't have is relevant to that construct.

If the issue is that your LO likes to have a bottle in the afternoon, I'd be inclined to fade the milk rather than giving any other drink. You could do a milk to water fade over a month by replacing 1/4 of the milk with water each week. This avoids the need to offer juice, and allows your LO to adjust gradually. xx

[jennyh]

Thanks everyone. I did end up driving down to the nursery with a bottle yesterday as I had visions of meltdown and I couldn't bear it!! That said I did give her less. Today she has gone with a bottle but also a huge pot of raisins and apricots. The instructions are to take her into the playroom after her nap to avoid watching all the sleepy ones having their post nap milk, to give her some snacks and a drink of water. If she is inconsolable and won't settle then the milk is there as a last resort.

Saffron -I'm not sure if it is the bottle she wants so that will be interesting to see. With me she will generally wake up in a bad mood but after some cuddles and fruit she is alright, I'm sure it is a nice part of her routine and I don't want her to go without if she needs it/wants it so your water idea is helpful.

I am interested to see if her appetite for at increases. Let's see! She's only at nursery 3 days so I can see how the other days go at home.

Thanks again!

[Saffron]

jennyh Wrote:

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> Thanks everyone. I did end up driving down to the

> nursery with a bottle yesterday as I had visions

> of meltdown and I couldn't bear it!!

Aw, best mum of the week award to you! Be sure you write that down in her baby book, so you can get some milage out of it when she's a teen. ;-)

[Ko]

its a hard one. i feel guilty that my almost two and a half year old still loves his milk! the advice is to cut it down but some little ones are really attached to it. i would do whatever you feel is right for your little one and ignore all the advice that the HVs, nursery etc give (although i do realise that these people all have your best interests at heart).

i remember a discussion with my (very good) gp about my son's reluctance to give up milk and his fussiness about food. she said that a mother should go with her instincts as she knows her child best.

i would use the routine that you use on your days at home with her. if you feel she is okay without the milk, then go with that. she will get used to that and then that is what she will expect at nursery. good luck xxx

[Saffron]

Roughly 17 oz (500 mL) is the upper limit for milk intake for a toddler based on an RDI of 500 mg/day. Obviously this will be slightly different for different children. One can't compare a healthy child on the 2nd% to a healthy child on the 98th% and say that their needs are the same. Broadly, I've also read the estimation as 12-24 oz.

Excess calcium can interfere with iron absorption b/c calcium and iron ions compete for uptake by the same cellular compenents. Our diets are generally lower in iron than calcium; however, the equation also runs in reverse. Too much iron interferes with calcium uptake.

(Just a personal example: I need to take high iron supplements b/c of a blood disorder. Because of the concern that this would interfere with calcium uptake (and I've been b/fing for 2 years), I also take calcium supplements. The pharmacist said it's fine with a 2-4 hour gap between the iron and calcium.)

On the subject of calcium in milk, I've read that the calcium in leafy greens is more readily absorbed than milk, and that the actual calcium absorption from cow's milk may be lower than estimated because the ion-complex in cow's milk is not as bioavailable to humans. I'd love to read more about this from some reputable sources if anyone has info.

And finally, vitamin C aids iron absorption from the stomach. So some C-rich fruit or a bit of juice with an iron-rich meal can help the iron in the meal to be more readily absorbed.