Milk Transition Success: What Parents Must Know

Welcome to Pete’s dock talk tv i am dr mona a board certified pediatrician and mother to a toddler and we’re going to be talking all about milk today a highly requested topic on my Instagram community at Pete’s doc talk we’re going to be talking about when to introduce it why we give milk plant-based alternatives if you don’t want to do cow’s milk what about toddler formula how to introduce milk and how much your child should be drinking so if you’re new here make sure you hit that subscribe button that’s right below the video that’s how you stay up to date on all of my videos that.

I have coming out for you regarding child health wellness parenting and current events and here we go so before i continue with all things diet and nutrition regarding your child make sure you talk to your child’s clinician regarding personal recommendations this is going to be very important especially if your child has a milk protein allergy or is lactose intolerant so they can guide you on the best recommendations for your kid when to introduce milk so if you are breastfeeding your baby you are going to be breastfeeding your baby as long as desired by you so this video is more for if you are transitioning off of breast milk or if you are formula feeding your baby and now want to introduce cow’s milk or a plant-based alternative the American academy of pediatrics recommends introducing cow’s milk around the first birthday this is of course.

If you have decided to wean off of breast milk or if you are formula feeding your baby in Canada they actually recommend between the ages of 9 and 12 months my opinion is closer to 12 months but you can start to consider introducing after the 10-month mark so why are we able to introduce yogurts and cheeses but not full-on cow’s milk until the child’s one year of age so if you followed any of my other content via my Instagram or my podcast you know that I’m okay introducing dairy products which include cheese and yogurts after the six month mark but why not cow’s milk so the reason why we don’t want to introduce cow’s milk so early is the dose getting yogurts and cheeses is fine those are usually just a snack or in conjunction with other foods but if you’re introducing cow’s milk that’s a lot of milk that could potentially be going into the child’s system.

And their body may not be able to handle the sugars as well as the protein in that cow’s milk so we like to say they wait till one year but get the body used to it by giving yogurts and cheeses if that’s what you all eat in your diet another reason why we don’t get cow’s milk so early is that it has a high volume of minerals and proteins that the immature kidneys cannot handle so we should only be giving babies breast milk or formula until they’re ready closer to the 10 month or 12 month mark for cow’s milk we also don’t want to get cow’s milk because it’s not a great source of iron we want to give breast milk or formula to provide the well-balanced nutrition that an infant baby needs now close to 10 months or above the reason why I’m okay giving milk at that age is that again we have introduced other forms of dairy which includes yogurt and cheeses i have a lot of families that come in that are formula feeding their baby.

And formula is running out so then we go to cow’s milk but i usually say they wait till about 10 to 11 months and only introduce it if you’ve already introduced other forms of dairy so for my breastfeeding moms again it’s whenever you decide so whenever you are deciding to wean your baby off of your breast milk is when you can decide to start incorporating cow’s milk there is no rush to this but just say you have a toddler and you are weeding off a breast milk and you want to start introducing some cow’s milk or plant-based alternative in conjunction with the breast milk you can go ahead and do so why do we recommend whole milk as the first milk we give toddlers so my personal opinion is that there are many options you do not have to give cow’s milk you can also do a plant-based alternative i have a lot of plant-based families i have a lot of families who themselves don’t drink cow’s milk so there are alternatives.

That you all can decide now we recommend cow’s milk because of how nutritious it is in supplementation to a healthy diet whole milk has vitamins which includes zinc vitamin a it includes protein as well as healthy fats it also is a good source of calcium all of these are essential for healthy growth and development but dr mona does my child need milk they eat so well they eat a well-rounded diet no milk is a supplement to food it’s not a meal replacement so you want to focus on having three meals and two snacks or three snacks for your toddler and milk can be something that they have when they wake up in the morning or before they go to bed but you don’t need them to have milk what’s more important to me is that you’re setting boundaries with food you’re encouraging a variety of different foods because food itself has a lot of nutrients.

And vitamins as well so now what plant-based alternative would you choose for your child if you didn’t want to do whole milk i think it’s important before i answer that question that we look at a nutrition label of whole milk to get some more information because like i said whole milk has protein and fat which is good for the developing toddler brain and body so first let’s look at a whole milk label so as you can see it has eight grams of protein and eight grams of fat two percent milk has eight grams of protein and five grams of fat non-fat milk has eight grams of protein and no fat so the aap recommends that for babies who are not being breastfed we introduce cow’s milk around the age of one like i said i’m okay a little bit earlier if you’ve introduced yogurts and cheeses if you’re transitioning from formula and you’re running out if you’re breastfeeding and you’re deciding to transition to milk a little bit early that is up to you and.

Your decision so whole milk is recommended around the age of one because of that protein and fat content two percent is recommended after the age of two years old if your child has a strong family history of obesity high blood pressure or chronic heart disease your child’s clinician may say hey let’s go straight to two percent and bypass whole milk because they may not need that fat content now if your child has a milk protein allergy or is lactose intolerant i ask that you speak to your pediatrician about the best way to introduce milk the reason why i want you to do that is some pediatricians or allergists may have a plan for you to introduce dairy back into that child’s diet so i don’t want you to use the recommendations on this video if your child has one of those medical conditions so now getting back to that question on what are the best plant-based alternatives for cow’s milk my favorites are soy and.

Pea and i’m going to be showing you a comparison of a whole milk nutrition label as well as a soy and pea milk nutrition label so you can make the best decision for your family now let’s compare cow’s milk and pea milk so cow’s milk we’re talking about whole milk in this situation again because we’re looking at the ages of one to three cow’s milk has eight grams of protein eight grams of fat pea milk has eight grams of protein and 4.5 grams of fat now if your child is getting a varied diet do they really need that fat content probably not so you can make this decision for your family soy milk is another great option which has seven grams of protein and four point grams of fat comparing that to whole milk almond and oat milk are other great alternatives but don’t have as much fat and protein content so i love this comparison chart this shows various different types of milk including whole milk and how they compare in terms of vitamins minerals protein and fat so this is a great way to make a decision that’s best for your child so if you’re giving your child milk that’s low.

In fat or protein aim for protein rich foods or foods with healthy fats on the other hand if your child is a more restricted eater maybe you want to incorporate milks that have more fat content if they don’t eat a lot of healthy fats more protein if they don’t eat a lot of protein so remember milk is part of our nutrition so it should be a supplement and it’s important to know well what are my needs here for my child so another tip is that if you are buying a plant-based alternative make sure you watch out for added sugars they put this in so that the milk tastes better so for example sweetened almond milk some types of soy milk you want to make sure that you don’t buy the ones with added sugar in it and air on the side of an unsweetened version the added sugars are not recommended for children under two so this is an important thing to remember does your child need toddler milk or toddler formulas no this.

Is all a marketing ploy to get you to buy something that’s actually a little more expensive than regular cow’s milk a plant-based alternative breast milk or formula it also contains a lot of added sugar so you want to be careful of these parents will say well my child likes it of course they like it has a lot of sugar in it i would suggest transitioning them to a cow’s milk or a plant-based alternative with low sugar and I’ll go over how to transition your child next how to introduce the cow’s milk so i like the 50 50 method if your child is being bottle fed whether that’s pumped milk or whether that’s formula fed what you do in this situation is that you do 50 formula as an example 50 is cow’s milk and you do that for a few days once they tolerate that you can do a 25 75 ratio or you can go straight to 100 cow’s milk we did a 50 50 for three days Ryan was tolerating it and.

Then we transitioned him fully to cow’s milk if your child is breastfeeding at the breast I’m going to be having a lactation consultant come on my podcast the peds doc talk podcast to talk about weaning your child off of breast milk and then you can use the tips that I’m recommending in this video another option for transitioning them to cow’s milk is doing one bottle of formula or breast milk and then doing another bottle of cow’s milk i don’t like this method as much personally because i find that they still understand well no this is completely different when you mix it together they are more likely to take it like i said in the option number one the third option for introducing is cold turkey you say bye pumped breast milk bye formula.

And go straight to keel’s mill some kids do tolerate it which is why i wanted to give you that option but i find that slow introduction that i mentioned and just moving at the speed that your child’s tolerating is the best idea so now how much milk to give so the asap recommends that for your child who’s 12 to 24 months they get anywhere from 16 to 24 ounces of milk for your child who’s older than two years anywhere from 16 to 20 ounces but my opinion differs slightly if your child is eating well and refusing milk i don’t need you to force it on them you can create a routine obviously keep offering it to them but you can’t force that milk down when a child.

Is eating well that is my dream awesome milk remember is a supplement to what they’re eating i advise that you don’t introduce milk with the meals milk should be again separate water should be with meals you don’t want them to fill up too much on milk and then not eat so recommendation is water with meals milk as an adjunct throughout the rest of their day try to cap out at 24 ounces of milk in a day the ap set those ranges i have more of a maximum range that i recommend minimum just depends on the child so as an example my son Ryan who’s 13 months old only drinks about 14 ounces of milk a day and we do a variety of different things such as yogurts and cheeses and a healthy varied diet so now why do we max out at 24 ounces well one milk is very filling so if they’re drinking a lot of milk they’re not going to.

Be eating as much and that is why i don’t want milk with meals i would prefer water with meals and i also want to introduce milk where we’re not doing more than 24 ounces another reason why we don’t want to do too much milk is that too much milk can lead to iron deficiency anemia which is a low hemoglobin count low iron this is important because iron helps our cells in our brain so going too much and filling up on milk means less iron-rich foods so that is why iron is usually screened at well visits usually around the one-year mark 18-month mark or two-year mark thank you for tuning in today make sure you hit that thumbs-up sign comment below and make sure to subscribe to Pete’s doctoral tv so you can stay up to date on all the videos i release and also just support me and this channel follow me at Pete’s doc talk on Instagram and subscribe to the peds doc talk podcast and I’ll see you next week.

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