From Formula to milk

Hi, my boys are turning 1 yr. on the 27th and I'm wondering what kind of milk do kids 1 yr. and older drink? Currently they drink Similac Sensitive. I heard that around 12 mths they transition over to 2% whole milk. My boys may have to drink Lactose milk.(I don't know so far.) Our 1 yr. checkup isn't until the 16th.Also, baby food and baby cereal is just not cutting it for us...I need to start table food and already started giving them foods like grits, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, spagetti....(all chopped up of coarse).Please enlighten me...how to keep these big eaters full?(What foods and milk)and how many times a day? Thanks in advance.

 

Is 2% whole milk the same as just 2% (pardon my ignorance, I've just never heard of it referred to that way). At 12 months, whole milk is what is recommended because the fat content is needed for brain development. Most of the time 2% is not recommended until 2 or after. This was what my pedi had told me anyway.

Here's a good link on milk and food recommendations

 

At one, we started on whole milk. My two were also on Similac Sensitive before making the transition. I did half milk and formula combo at first and then slowly decreased the formula until they only had all milk.
As for food at 12 months the only things I avoided: shellfish (due to allergies in the family, got the okay from pedi at 2), tomatoes/oranges/acidy food (because that stuff would give DD mega diaper rash at the time), hot dogs (they were 17-18 months before I'd let them have the hot dogs cut up, I wanted to wait until they were pretty much past shoveling food in their mouths and were better at taking one piece at a time).

Our schedule at 12 months was like this
8am breakfast (fruit, cereal) & 8oz milk
9:30-11-nap
11:30 lunch: waffles, eggs, pb &j, yogurt, fruit, veggies, grilled cheese, cut up leftovers from dinner, Gerber pasta pick-ups, pancakes
1:00 8oz milk
2:00-4: nap
4:30-5 dinner-what ever we were having: meat/fish/ starch/veggie
6: snack
7:00 8oz bottle
they got sippies of water throughout the day and we were on 24 oz of milk at first because the pedi wanted them to put on weight. I added Carnation Instant Breakfast to it to increase calories. We dropped bottles around 15 months.

 

I am about to make the switch to milk today. I finished up the last of our formula this morning so their next bottles will be whole milk. My plan is to give them warm milk in bottles for the next 4-5 days, then go to cold milk for a few days, and then eliminate the bottle completely. I am so ready to be done with bottles.

My boys don't eat any babyfood at this point. At 10 months they started rejecting it, so I give them table food and since they are already one I give them everything. Breakfast is usually yogurt or applesauce, pancakes or waffles, and cut up fruit. Lunch is often leftovers from last nights dinner, it's usually pasta or rice, some type of meat, diced veggies, and more fruit, around 2 pm they have a snack which is usually some form of crackers and fruit or veggies, dinner is whatever we are having cut into small pieces.

 

We transitioned to whole milk (not 2%) at 12 months. Fat is really important to their development, so I believe that most peds suggest staying on whole milk until at least 2 years old. You can try regular milk and see if they tolerate it. If not, you may have to buy the lactose free milk.

As far as when and what to feed, what worked best for us was to give them their milk sippies with meals/snack, and to offer water or diluted juice in between meals for thirst. I have skinny guys, so I offer them 3 meals and 2 snacks per day; their tummies are still pretty small and I want to give them the opportunity to eat every few hours.

At 12 months, our schedule looked something like this:

7:30 wake, breakfast, milk
9:30 nap
11:00 snack, milk
12:30-1 lunch, milk
2 nap
3:30 snack, milk
6 dinner, milk
7:30 bedtime (with a sippy of warmed milk)

At 12 months I was offering them a lot of what we were eating for dinner, just chopped up very small so it wasn't a choking hazard. I "topped them off" for a while with baby food veggies, but they rejected that at about 14-15 months so they're entirely "free fed" at this point! A great suggestion I read from a feeding expert was to offer bread with every meal. It's a good source of complex carbs and most kids can fill up on it even if they're super picky and don't want to eat the rest of the meal.

Hope this helps!

 

You can also try Whole Milk that's DHA fortified (Horizon Brand). My Pedi recommended that for our girls. It was expensive (almost $8 bucks a gallon!) but I bought it for almost a year (just got rid of cable . Now at 2 my girls are still on whole milk for the added calories.

 

I'm not sure what state OP and others are in, but we have had a lot of luck with the DHA Fortified Private Selection Whole Milk. It's the store brand at Kroger and their affiliated stores. It's usually a little cheaper, and we went cold turkey from formula to it, however we didn't have any lactose issues. GL.

 

Thanks alot ladies, I talked to the kids pedi yesterday and she told me to try the whole milk.I bought Mayfield because of the brand not having alot of hormones added to it...but I will look into the DHA fortified.And great selections of food advice..Thanks again.