Katie Ferraro (1s):

And parents will say, well, I'm looking for an alternative to cow's milk. And they'll think about like almond milk, which in theory sounds great. Except if you look at the protein content of all the milk, there's almost nothing in there. It's not the same as feeding your baby cows milk. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mama of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (41s):

Hey guys, welcome back talking today about milk and exactly. How do you pick a milk when your baby turns one? Cause you might have heard that things change a little bit at around the first year mark in that babies no longer need to be drinking formula. And if you're breastfeeding, which is great, you do that as long as you and baby are comfortable, but it's definitely time to transition to cows milk. In addition to that. So how do you make that change? That's what we're talking about in today's episode. Now, before we get started, I always like to begin the episodes with a baby led weaning tip of the day. And this tip today is do not replace formula or breast milk with fluid cows milk until the baby turns one.

Katie Ferraro (1m 24s):

But it is totally fine to include cow's milk, protein foods like yogurt and cheese, and even milk uses an ingredient in different recipes that you might be making prior to that. And I have to say, I was like really confused by that as a new mom, I was like, wait a minute. I know you don't give cows milk to babies till they're one, but you need to introduce cow's milk as a protein. How do you feed cows milk if you're not supposed to be feeding cows milk? So if you're confused about any of the cows milk stuff, I want you to go back and listen to a really early episode in the podcast that was episode 13, it's called milk protein. How to introduce your baby to this potentially allergenic food. It will talk you through how you can do the cows milk protein before your baby should be drinking fluid cow's milk.

Katie Ferraro (2m 7s):

But what we're talking about today is something I don't normally talk about. I generally stop talking about infant nutrition when your baby turns 12 months, but I've worked with a lot of families who are like, Hey, I did your a hundred first foods program. My babies tried all the allergenic foods were like jamming on baby led weaning. I just want to know what to look out for when baby turns one. So we're going to be focusing on that today. If you guys are interested in learning more about that hundred first foods approach to starting solids with baby led weaning, I've got a free workshop called baby led weaning for beginners. It's all about how to get your baby to eat 100 different foods before turning one. Without you having to spoonfeed purees or buy pouches, you can sign up for this week's workshop times by going to the show notes for this episode, BLW podcast.com forward slash 79.

Katie Ferraro (2m 55s):

Everyone on that free workshop gets a copy of my 101st foods list and can get your baby well on his or her way to trying a hundred from foods before turning one with the info you learn on that worksheet, but what about what your baby drinks? That's what we're focusing on today. Now a couple of quick tips about milk. When it comes to transitioning to cows milk, I recommend making the change at around the 12-month mark, all of the major health bodies say it's totally fine to move to cows milk at a brown one year of age. I tend not to do it like right on the first birthday. There's a lot of stuff going on, but in that week or so following the first birthday, I will make that transition to cows milk. And what we look to feed is whole milk or full fat.

Katie Ferraro (3m 36s):

You hear it called vitamin D cow's milk and vitamin D milk. It's a little bit of a misnomer because, because in the United States, at least by law, all fluid milk has to be fortified with the same amount of vitamin D. So there's no more vitamin D in whole milk than you would find in reduced fat or low fat milk with the different fat contents is we don't serve produce or low-fat or non-fat milk products till babies until they're these two, they need the fat for they're still developing brains. So you look for whole milk. So not reduced fat, not low fat, not non-fat. We make that switch to cows milk. So if your baby is allergic to cow's milk protein, and you have a diagnosed cows, milk protein allergy, you of course would need to avoid that.

Katie Ferraro (4m 17s):

But as long as your baby is not allergic to cow's milk, there's no reason why you can't feed it. Sometimes parents start asking lots of questions about different cows, milk alternatives. Again, if there's not allergy, there's no reason to avoid cow's milk. When you do feed cows milk, you want to do whole milk cows milk. Now, one area where I see a lot of parents making mistakes is that they tend to overfeed milk. And I know this happened in my own family. I have a sister-in-law who said, you know, I went in for the checkup at 15 months. My daughter had really gained a lot of weight. And importantly, I thought she was a good eater, but turns out when we did a little bit more of a deep dive, she was drinking like between 36 and 48 ounces of milk a day than a 12 ounce Nalgene sippy cup that they were filling up three and four times a day.

Katie Ferraro (4m 60s):

And when we realized it, I said to my sister-in-law, oh my gosh. That's like literally twice as much as she should be drinking. And my sister-in-law said, but you know, I thought milk was a healthy food. It was fine for kids to have as much as they want. And it's just a reminder that too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Milk while it is a nutrient dense source of calories and protein vitamin a vitamin D calcium, et cetera. It's not the perfect food and we can not feed it freely in the sense that babies or toddlers drink too much of it. And when I see families struggling with feeding and toddlerhood, you know, there's some degree of picky eating that sets in, in the first year of life, but, but I'll see declines in intake and parents are like, whoa, I really feel like my toddler should be eating more than this. It tends to be from two things.

Katie Ferraro (5m 41s):

Either the baby is drinking too much milk or the milk is too close to the meal or the baby's being pumped full of snacks. We've talked a lot about snacks on the podcast, but I really don't advocate for snacks prior to one. And even after that, I say, use snacks judiciously, and be empowered to say no to snacks as a way to help your child feel some hunger and be hungry at mealtime, but don't let them fill up on milk either. There's plenty of children who are perfectly healthy, who drink very little amounts of milk. They get their calcium from other places. They're getting their fluids from water and other high water content foods, but just be aware of the number of ounces that your child drinks with regard to milk. And I normally don't encourage parents to get really nitty gritty and nitpicky about the numbers, but just eyeball.

Katie Ferraro (6m 21s):

How many ounces of milk a day your child is drinking? And in the second year of life, the AAP American academy of pediatrics recommends feeding somewhere between 16 to 24 ounces. I will routinely work with families whose babies and toddlers are drinking way more than 24 ounces. So I personally like to keep in my own experience, my own seven children between somewhere between 16 to 20 ounces of cow's milk in the second year of life, it's perfectly fine for babies to drink less, but anytime they're drinking more, you're running the risk of that child drink too much milk at which point they would be over full from. And then not as inclined to eat at mealtime. We also know in the research shows us that intakes of cows milk above 32 ounces per day today predisposes a child to iron deficiency and as wonderful as milk is it doesn't contain iron and we don't want it to displace or cause the child it be full and then not eat other iron containing foods.

Katie Ferraro (7m 13s):

Now let's talk a little bit about what not to feed when it comes to milk for families that are looking sometimes for milk alternative, let's say the baby does have a cow's milk protein. Yeah. Allergy they'll sometimes say, okay, well I'm gonna look to all men milk or soy milk when it comes to milk, it gives you need to be cognizant of the fact that many of them contain added sugars. So it is important to read labels. Parents will say, oh, my child loves vanilla soy milk. Of course they love vanilla soy milk because it's basically like white chocolate milk because it's got a ton of added sugar in it. The vanilla flavoring is, is sugary. So we don't want any added sugars for babies until after yeah. Page two. And even then we need to keep it to a very minimum. And most children eat significantly more added sugar than they should. And it sneaks into the diet in places like soy milk or almond milk or pea milk or whatever it is if it has added sugar.

Katie Ferraro (7m 58s):

So do read your labels, look for zero grams of added sugar. Also take into consideration that foods like for example, almond milk, they are not nutritionally equivalent to cow's milk. One of the reasons why we feed our toddlers cows milk at starting around age one is because it is a good source of protein. There's certainly other sources of protein that the baby's eating. But if you look at all almond milk in a cup of cow's milk, there's eight grams of protein, but in a cup of almond milk, there's one or two grams of protein. And people think, well, almonds are a high protein food. So almond milk would be, but no through the processing of almonds into almond milk, much of the protein is removed and what's left. Doesn't have very much protein in it. So again, unless the child has a diagnosed cows, milk, protein allergy, there's really no reason to start down the road of looking for a cows milk alternative.

Katie Ferraro (8m 41s):

If you do need to that, you want to make sure that it does not have added sugar and look for something that's equivalent. As far as protein goes to cows milk. And I think plain soy milk, as long as it's calcium and vitamin D fortified is the best alternative. Now, a couple of other things that change around the one-year mark is we want to think about transitioning the baby off of the bottle. And this is news to a lot of parents. There'll be walking around with a two year old drinking out of a bottle. We definitely don't want that. Okay. The general rule of thumb is somewhere between 12 and 15 months of age to try to wean your baby off the bottle. We know that delayed bottle use is associated with delayed speech development, right? Cause you're working on all these feeding milestones, but the speech milestones are coming next as well.

Katie Ferraro (9m 22s):

So I've always given myself a little bit of a grace period. Again, there's a lot going on at the 12 month mark, you got to have that birthday party. We're working on some other things, but by 15 months of age, I definitely do try to have baby off the bottle. So it's just something to be thinking about. And if you're like, okay, well they go off of the bottle. Then what do they drink out of? We really recommend that you go directly from the breast or bottle to an open cup. And if this is all news to you, I want you to know you certainly can skip the sippy cup. One of the most downloaded episodes of this podcast is an interview I did with my good friend and colleague Dawn Winkelmann. She's a pediatric swallowing expert. This episode is called six reasons to skip the sippy cup with Dawn Winkelmann.

Katie Ferraro (10m 2s):

You can find that@blwpodcast.com forward slash 40, check that out for some more advice on how you can get your baby off of the bottle. Again, something to be thinking about in the 12 to 15 month mark, but remembering that babies don't just magically wake up on their 12 month birthday and know how to drink 16 to 20 ounces of cow's milk out of an open cup. We need to use the weening period as the opportunity to practice drinking out of the open cup. And our goal is that baby can drink out of an open cup by his self or herself. I'll be it with minimal spillage by about the time the baby turns one taste, start that open cup training early and often get your baby transitioned to cows milk, do whole milk cows milk. If you have to do a cow's milk alternative because of cow's milk, protein allergy, look for no sugar options.

Katie Ferraro (10m 46s):

Look for whole milk option equivalents. Those would be those alternatives that are fortified with calcium and vitamin D. So I know you guys get worried when your baby turns one, that there's all these things that you need to do differently. And the reality is they're really not. But one of the major changes is that we do take baby from breast milk and or formula and move them to cows milk. Of course, if you're breastfeeding continue to do so for as long as you and baby are comfortable or enjoy the experience, but for the formula feeders, I know you guys want to be done at the one-year mark. You can definitely make that transition to cows milk. And I wanted to include that. One of the ways I recommend making the transition is you can definitely go cold Turkey, like right from the formula or breast milk to cows milk if you want.

Katie Ferraro (11m 27s):

But what I'll do on my baby's first birthday is I'll start doing half cow's milk and half formula, breast milk or a combination thereof. So I'll do half half basically until I run out of breast milk or I run out of formula. At which point, if I'm done pumping no more pumping of the breast milk, if I'm done buying formula no more buying of the formula, it usually takes a few days to run out and then I'll move the baby directly to cows milk, whole milk cows milk, trying to keep it somewhere between 16 to 24 ounces a day, but also knowing that some babies do very well with less than that amount, you really do just want to avoid going over that amount because babies who drink too much milk, we know it then negatively impacts the amount and their ability to eat food at meal time, because they're just not feeling hungry, but also keep in mind it could be displacing other important foods that contain nutrients that as much as we love milk, milk just doesn't provide.

Katie Ferraro (12m 18s):

So I hope you guys found this episode helpful on how to pick a milk when your baby turns one for all of the links related to this episode, check out the show notes for this particular episode. Number 79 at blwpodcast.com/79. Bye now!