Right now, my youngest is only six months old, so I've got some time to make this decision. With my first daughter, my doctor recommended at a year of age that I totally switch her to whole milk. I ignored him at first, but nursing became too painful, so I went ahead and weaned.

With my youngest, I'm pumping about 24 extra ounces of breastmilk per day. I'm donating that milk to a breastmilk bank right now, but I'll cease to be eligible to donate when Tory's a year old. So, I'm wondering, should I continue pumping and fill my deep freeze with BM. Then, after her suction becomes too much for me, I can still give her defrosted BM.

I'm just wondering if there's a reason that my former pediatrician recommended that she go to whole milk instead of breastmilk at age one? I fired him because of an issue with my oldest that led me to question his judgement, so now I'm second guessing all of his recommendations. If my new pediatrician advises to quit breastfeeding at one year of age, should I? Or is there really no reason to go to whole milk at one year of age?

So does he own stock in the dairy industry? :lol: :lol:

There is no reason to wean totally unless you feel you and the baby are ready. Breastmilk is still perfectly healthy for 1-2 year olds. I know at that age they need solid food though. I would check with la leche league about nutritional requirements at 1 year. But there is nothing wrong with breastfeeding toddlers. Also it's the best thing for them if they ever get sick. even if you give them some cow's milk you can still breastfeed past a year.

It's totally YOUR choice. Don't let anyone guilt you into weaning early, not even your doctor. If you want to wean, go ahead, but breastfeeding has nothing but BENEFITS for you and your baby, and those benefits continue past 12 months of age! I don't know what is up with doctors today being all bossy about what to do with your kids.

what? you're being told bm is providing no benefit to a 1+ yr old? that's just garbage Bm provides benefit/nutrients for as long as the child nurses, be that to 1 yr or 3

and I don't get into the whole 'whole milk' thing anywho My kids don't drink milk None of them They do not wean from bm to cow milk. I don't think dairy is all it's cracked up to be ;) If one has a desire for milk, I say goat is a better option. Many babies transition better to goat milk anywho, btw. But, we just don't do milk here. Unless momma is on a cold cereal kick herself and the boys are allowed an occasional indulgence (they have hot cereals or eggs everyday).

there's no reason to wean a child at 1 yr unless you and your baby are ready I fully encourage nursing past the one year mark Yes, the baby's needs change (physically and emotionally) and they may go through a spurt where it seems all they want to do is nurse...but it will pass. Lots of things are coming into play at that time. Baby is hitting another growth spurt, baby is learning new things (crawling/walking), baby is teething, mom's cycles may be returning if they haven't already (which changes milk production and for some perhaps even taste ? only minor ;)) ...

anywho..don't listen to a dr. who tells you to wean at 1 yr, and in my opinion, don't even listen when they say to introduce whole milk at that age, whether it coincide with weaning or not

Glad you got rid of the doctor. Your child is human, not a cow. Why on earth would anyone think that your baby must have milk from another species?

Was nursing painful due to your 2nd pregnancy? I went through that with both subsequent pregnancies. I understand the pain!!!

The defrosted breastmilk is much better for her than cow's milk. That's so great that you make so much and donate it. Kudos to you!

Ditto to what everybody else said. I've even heard that long term nursing can reduce the risks of some childhood cancers. In the Bible, the normal age of weaning was around 3 years old. Your breastmilk has benefits for your baby whether she's 1 year old or 7 years old. The WHO even recommends nursing until the age of two.

Good thing for me too! Because my husband and I don't even drink milk, so my daughter won't be going to whole milk at age one.

So stick with what is best for YOU rather than what your doctor recommends. And there's always the option of switching doctors if he gets too pushy. Because regardless of what he says, it's YOUR choice and your choice only when to wean your daughter. And IMO any good doctor will respect your choice.

My son is 2 and still nursing (I will have to wean him before the new baby is born though, not looking forward to that!).
There is no reason to stop nursing if you don't want to, but i have heard that no child should have cow's milk before the age of 12 mos bec their body is not ready to process it yet. My son has both now- breastmilk and cow's milk. You don't have to stop nursing even if you do introduce cow's milk to a child's diet after 12 mos, though.

Maybe your doctor assumed you would be weaning at a year, and suggested whole milk. Doctors are encouraging whole milk because for ahwile in th 90's, many overly diet consious, and fat fearful parents were weaning from formula to skim milk. When a child is still on the bottle and just drinking skim milk, and not eating a whole lot of table foods, they don't get all the nutrients, and fat they need. I think that advice is to a whole different crowd than the breastfeeding crowd. Sadly, we are the minority. I work with children 0 to 3 and I rarely see a child that is breastfed. :( I don't know what it will take to turn the tide. My children's dr's were glad I was breastfeeding, but they see it so infrequently, I don't think they were real current on prodical. Not to defend your Dr., or any Dr. that isn't current on breastfeeding, they need to read up on things, but you are probably better to do your own research, including listening to your girlfriends with experience here :D

This is just my opinion so you can take it or leave it. If it was me I would continue bfing (or giving her expressed bm) but introduce cows milk as well. Even if it's just through dairy products like yoghurt, cheese etc...
You won't be able to bf her for the rest of your life obviously :lol: so her body needs to get used to cows milk. Otherwise if you leave introducing it until she is older say 2 or 3 or 4, she may end up being allergic to it. JMO

I agree about the weaning thing. I did introduce Dd to cows milk when she was over a year because my BM supply dipped waaaay down due to this pregnancy (I always had low milk supply anyways) and I have always loved my cows milk. I did start to make goats milk kefir for Dd, but she would just drink our cows milk kefir, so I stopped with the goats milk. I do agree that goats milk is so much easier for babies to drink, it's probably as close to breastmilk as you can get from another animal, and I was going to use that as a base for "formula" if my supply got down too low before Dd was one.
Someone said that docs say whole milk because of the fat, and that's totally right. I also think that a lot of docs recommend milk for kids because of the calcium. Here in the US at least, it's not common for people to not eat enough of the other high calcium rich food, so they say milk because it's an easy way to get your fill of calcium.
My Dd has followed in my footsteps and LOVES her cows milk....of course she prefers it heated like my milk was......but she still nurses many times a day, and I think I have no real milk left, but it's so good for them both physically and emotionally to nurse for a few years, so like others said, if you and your baby like to nurse, keep up with it. Even being pregnant and having pretty sore nips, I enjoy our nursing times!

Blessings to you,
Amber

I always thought that skim milk was not recommended for kids under a certain age... like 5 or something. Because there isn't enough calcium or fat in it. Something like that....

We only drink whole milk here anyway because we get our milk for $2.20 for 2 litres (that's the cheapest) and they only do whole milk.

I always thought that skim milk was not recommended for kids under a certain age... like 5 or something. Because there isn't enough calcium or fat in it. Something like that....

Until a child is 2 he/she should drink whole milk.

the fats in whole milk provide fats needed for proper brain development, so docs will tell you to give them whole milk. HOWEVER, breastmilk is best for ANY age. When i was nursing Bri, Brian got sick. Well, we have a family doctor rather than a doc for me and and brian then a ped for the kids, so we went to the doc. he had a stomach flu, so of course the "thing to do" was for it to run it's course, but the doc said that if Brian could tolerate the extreme sweetness of breastmilk and I could spare say 8 oz. a day, if he drank it while he was recooping, it would help his recovery. So obviously, BM is good for anyone.

When we had to stop nursing and switched to formula, we found out Bri has a protein allergy, as do all three of our kids, btw, that protein is in the FAT of whole milk. so when Bri stopped formula, he went to 2% milk, b/c he is starting to "grow" out of the allergy but still can't tolerate whole milk. he isn't taking any supplement or anything for that.

So in my opinion, and my doc shares this too, the baby is yours. not theirs. you know what they need and what they don't. You are the parent. God placed you in charge of their care. YOU need to make that decision.

If I could have continued to BF bri, we would still be right now, as long as he wanted to and the pregnancy with patrick didn't change anything. As a mother who physically couldn't after a while, I admire anyone who can and does bf so BF as long as you and your baby feel comfortable.

I was wondering if I could give Abby bm even though she hasn't had it since she was like 3 weeks old :lol: I was thinking of adding it into her cows milk so she doesn't taste it (just incase she doesn't like the taste now). But I'm not bfing anymore.

Well if I ever have more kids I may do that so Sophie gets a bit more bm.

the fats in whole milk provide fats needed for proper brain development, so docs will tell you to give them whole milk. HOWEVER, breastmilk is best for ANY age. When i was nursing Bri, Brian got sick. Well, we have a family doctor rather than a doc for me and and brian then a ped for the kids, so we went to the doc. he had a stomach flu, so of course the "thing to do" was for it to run it's course, but the doc said that if Brian could tolerate the extreme sweetness of breastmilk and I could spare say 8 oz. a day, if he drank it while he was recooping, it would help his recovery. So obviously, BM is good for anyone.

When we had to stop nursing and switched to formula, we found out Bri has a protein allergy, as do all three of our kids, btw, that protein is in the FAT of whole milk. so when Bri stopped formula, he went to 2% milk, b/c he is starting to "grow" out of the allergy but still can't tolerate whole milk. he isn't taking any supplement or anything for that.

So in my opinion, and my doc shares this too, the baby is yours. not theirs. you know what they need and what they don't. You are the parent. God placed you in charge of their care. YOU need to make that decision.

If I could have continued to BF bri, we would still be right now, as long as he wanted to and the pregnancy with patrick didn't change anything. As a mother who physically couldn't after a while, I admire anyone who can and does bf so BF as long as you and your baby feel comfortable.

Well that is understandable when there is an allergy to whole milk. You can't exactly keep giving it to them.
But you can't find out if they are allergic to the protein in whole milk unless you try it :wink: And if you have to use skim milk then you must have to supplement them somehow so they get the extra calcium right? Like with other dairy foods or with calcium tablets? Just curious.

Anyway, if you can keep giving a child bm then that's great. There's no need to switch to cows milk until your child is ready. IMO

milk based formula also contains the milk fat protein, and some babies whose moms have to refrain from milk/dairy during bf'ing are protein allergic as well, not lactose intolerant.

there is NO difference in amount of calcium from whole milk, to 2%, to skim milk. They all contain roughly 30% recommended daily value.

calcium is not the issue, it's the FAT in the whole milk when the protein allergy is present.

to get back on the original subject, though, this may help,

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/toddler-foods.html

What are the symptoms to a child having an allergy to the cow's milk protein??

milk based formula also contains the milk fat protein, and some babies whose moms have to refrain from milk/dairy during bf'ing are protein allergic as well, not lactose intolerant.

I know

there is NO difference in amount of calcium from whole milk, to 2%, to skim milk. They all contain roughly 30% recommended daily value.

calcium is not the issue, it's the FAT in the whole milk when the protein allergy is present.

So how do you make sure baby/child is getting enough fat? I'm only asking because I don't know.

to get back on the original subject, though, this may help,

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/toddler-foods.html

i'm not 100% sure myself on that one.

i wasn't trying to attack you by the way. I sometimes get defensive on this topic b/c of the heat we've gotten from family b/c our kids are protein allergic.

we actually had a close relative tell us that if we kept feeding them things that they were allergice to then they would be able to tolerate it, we just weren't "grown up" enough to deal with the puke until they "grew out of it". that same person told us that he thought we were "making it up" for attention b/c NO ONE is allergic to that much stuff, well, umm, if they weren't there wouldn't be an association for awareness of it, and there wouldn't be published info on what foods to avoid. KWIM? I was like, DUH. He has acid reflux and he thinks ALL gastro problems are just reflux that people can't deal with. (by the way, said the same thing about the baby's pyloric stenosis, which if not operated on will lead to death by starvation)

anywho, I'm not sure. You got me wonderin now :-)

but seriously, though, I didn't mean attack-ive if I came across like that.

i'm not 100% sure myself on that one.

i wasn't trying to attack you by the way. I sometimes get defensive on this topic b/c of the heat we've gotten from family b/c our kids are protein allergic.

we actually had a close relative tell us that if we kept feeding them things that they were allergice to then they would be able to tolerate it, we just weren't "grown up" enough to deal with the puke until they "grew out of it". that same person told us that he thought we were "making it up" for attention b/c NO ONE is allergic to that much stuff, well, umm, if they weren't there wouldn't be an association for awareness of it, and there wouldn't be published info on what foods to avoid. KWIM? I was like, DUH. He has acid reflux and he thinks ALL gastro problems are just reflux that people can't deal with. (by the way, said the same thing about the baby's pyloric stenosis, which if not operated on will lead to death by starvation)

anywho, I'm not sure. You got me wonderin now :-)

but seriously, though, I didn't mean attack-ive if I came across like that.

Hey no you didn't come across that way at all! :D I'm actually trying to be really careful these days how I write things down because I've come across the wrong way a few times :wink: I think we probably all have LOL
But I definitely did not take offense there.

And just ignore those family members of yours. They obviously have no idea.
There is a huge difference between the normal amount that a baby sicks up after a feed and the amount you'll get with a baby with acid reflux or an allergy. It's not good if they are sicking up their entire feed or most of it. Whereas, with Sophie (and Abby when she was under about 6 months) it's probably about 10-20mls at the most. It actually looks more than it is. She doesn't even sick up every time. I have a feeling she does it most often when she's had an empty tummy or she's just guzzled it all down too fast KWIM?

Anyway,....... off topic there LOL

our ped said that that the boys could have whole milk at age 1. If I had weaned before age 1, she said to use formula the switch at 12 mo.

My youngest went all the way to 18 mo with bf, so he didn't have any cow milk until then.

Also remember that you should not give more than 18-24 oz. of milk a day to a young child because they can only digest it at a certain rate... also why adults should not have more than ?1 quart? per day.