Will DD be able to drink whole milk at a year old??

[heidiann]

My DD is 9 1/2 months old and has been drinking Nutramigen since she was about 1 month old. At her 9 month check up my ped wanted me to try and get her to drink enfamil or enfamil gentlease before she was a year old, to then transition to whole milk. Well I started giving her 5 ounces of nutramigen to 1 ounce of gentlease, and she got diahrrea (sp?) really bad just like I thought she would I done this for about 5 days, the went back to just her nutramigen and in about 3 days she was back to normal. I guess my question is when she is a year old will she be able to drink whole milk or are we going to have issues again? I guess we just wait and see but I wanted to here some BTDT advice b/c I know there are a few babies here that was on nutramigen. If she can not drink milk what are my other alternatives.
TIA

Heidi
Mom to Jillian 10/20/05

[lilycat88]

In our case, yes. DD was on Nutramigen at about 6 weeks and was on that exclusively until about 8-9 months. We then switched to a soy formula as a "test" and after about a week for her system to adjust, she did fine. We stayed with Soy until just over a year and then tried whole milk. She did just fine with it and we did a very quick transition over just a day or so. Does she have any other dairy...cheese, yogurt? I take it that she doesn't have a true milk protein allergy, just an intollerance. DD didn't have a milk allergy but was unable to tolerate either milk based or soy formula until she was 8-9 months.

If she can't tolerate milk, she can have soy milk or rice milk but you'll need to watch the fat and try to add fat into her diet some other way.

One thing you might try is adding a probiotic to her diet now. I swear Nutramigen does funky things to the gut and adding probiotic helped with the diarrhea. If nothing else, it helps to bring things back to normal in the intestinal tract.

Jamelin
DD Susanna 6/29/04

[heidiann]

Jamelin,
Thanks for your advice, I have given her cheese (which she really likes) and she had no problems with that. Where would I buy probiotics? at a health food store?

Heidi
Mom to Jillian 10/20/05

[lilycat88]

Yes, a health food store. You can get some in a powdered form in the refrigerated section that are specifically formulated for infants/young children. A bottle lasts a long time. We just put it in DDs milk cup in the morning. We put it in her bottle when she was younger. If you do a search on probiotics you'll turn up a ton of posts on them. No guarantee it will help but it can't hurt. It seemed to help us with those nasty nutramigen diapers and DD has been on so many antibiotics that we just continued with using them.

She might just not be quite ready for a milk based formula even the Gentlease one. I'm not a huge fan of soy but it was a perfect bridge for a few months for us.

[saschalicks]

DS#1 was on Alimentum (Nutramigen equivalent) and we started whole milk at 1 with no problems. He's now on 2% and there is still no problem. We intend to do the same with DS#2, who is on Alimentum as well. HTH

ETC: typos

[mommyoftwo]

Amelia was on alimentum/nutramigen we had a really hard time transitioning her. She could not tolerate any dairy or soy. She ended up staying on nutramigen well past a year-til 16 or 17 months? We were finally able to transition her to lactose free skim milk and work our way up to whole milk. She can now do cheese and yogurt but sill has to have lactose free milk. She can also do soy now. I would give it at least a couple of months before you try again. We had to try 2 or 3 times before we were able to make the transition.

[Rachels]

Kids don't HAVE to drink milk. They're not cows, kwim? My daughter doesn't drink it-- she couldn't tolerate it and then just never developed a taste for it. If your little one doesn't tolerate it, no big deal-- there are other good sources of calcium and protein.

-Rachel
Mama to Abigail Rose
5/18/02
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_amethyst_36m.gif
Nursed for three years!

and Ethan James
10/19/05
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/bf.jpg


"When you know better, you do better."
Maya

[megs4413]

DD wasn't able to make the switch. We are doing lactose free milk even now at 16 mos.! She can do yogurt and SOME cheese just fine, though...

[randomkid]

DD was on Nutramigen until past one year (14 months I think). The ped recommended soy, but when DD was an infant, soy was worse than milk based formula for her. I was paranoid, so I waited. Their gut matures more after a year and there is nothing that says your DD HAS to be on milk by one year. I started with cheese and yogurt for a while, then around 14 months, I tried toddler formula instead of milk. I mixed it in with the Nutramigen with no problem (1 ounce of toddler formula to 3 ounces of Nutramigen). I slooooowly transitioned her just to make it easier for her system to adjust. I left her on toddler formula for a couple of months, then did another slow transition to whole milk. Worked great for us. Some might say that it isn't necessary to do it that way, but I think it was for my DD. You just have to do what works for your child. My ped was all about not rushing it. She is now on whole milk and does just fine.

Just wait until a year or even longer if you feel you need to, then try again. I agree with PP that probiotics may be helpful - can't hurt to try.