Can 11 month-old baby have whole milk?

[Anonymous]

I know I have read that babies cannot have cow's milk until they reach age 1 but I can't recall why. Has anyone's pediatrician okayed whole milk before age 1?

[Anonymous]

I started a bit before 12mos. My breast milk started to dry up and I just did not want to even try the formula for even a month.

I never ran it by my doctor, though. My son exhibited no problems with the cows milk. I certainly would not have done that if he had had a hard time with any kind of cheese or yogurt.

[Anonymous]

I did mine at 11.5 months. Slowly switching to all whole milk by 12 months.

There are a couple of concerns. Allergies is big, but you can watch for signs. Another is that formula has iron but milk does not. The baby needs to be getting iron from other sources once you switch to whole milk.

[Anonymous]

Our pediatrician told us we could start at 10 months - we didn't have any allergic reaction problems with any other foods and he thought we would be ok with it. Turns out DD doesn't like milk, but that is another issue!

[Anonymous]

Yes, it won't hurt them.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses. I will talk it over with the pediatrician. Baby is done nursing but I have been pumping 6x a day trying to make it to 12 months.