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Home › Articles › Toddler Nutrition › Making the Switch

Making the Switch

Introducing Milk to Your Baby

By Gina Roberts-Grey

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Initiating the Switch
"If you have the option, transition slowly," urges Dr. Levy. Replacing one nursing with a bottle every five to seven days and gradually increasing the frequency to once a day is a favored method to begin introducing milk or formula. "This also helps a mother's milk supply begin to gradually decrease," adds Dr. Robert Echenberg, an OB/GYN from Bethlehem, Pa.

Parents looking to incorporate bottles but wanting to continue supplying breast milk can pump breastmilk to be fed from a bottle. "Once our daughter was a few months old, we liked incorporating a few bottle feedings to let my husband and parents share in the experience," says Debra Katz of Liverpool, N.Y. "Being exposed to bottles helped when we were ready to switch her to straight milk."

"Again, a gradual introduction of bottles usually makes the experience less stressful for everyone," says Dr. Levy. Mixing bottle feedings with nursing can be accomplished by starting with a bottle full of breastmilk. "After a few days, add one ounce of formula or milk to the breastmilk. By slowly adding more formula and less breastmilk to the mix, your baby will become accustomed to feeding from bottles."

What Are the Risks?
One of the most common obstacles to weaning is a baby's resistance to accepting a bottle. Feedings are a very intimate and sensory-rich time for a baby. A child associates the way he is held, looked at and talked to during nursing. Children react to their mother's heartbeat, smell and pheromones and associate those things with feedings.

Intolerance of milk sugar or protein tops the list of potential health risks. "It is ironic that breastfed babies are exposed to all the potential allergens in milk if their mom drinks cow's milk," says Dr. Levy. Most of the popular and easily found formulas are cow's-milk-based products. "If formula is a problem, switching to soy or hypoallergenic formulas usually alleviates the baby's discomfort," he says.


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