Any ideas on how to get my 13 month old to drink milk?

Ievy - posted on 08/30/2009

all of these suggestionz are brilliant ideaz. and i hope one of them worked for you. i'll just say what helped with both my son, now 2 yearz old, and my daughter who just turned one and transitioned to milk most recently. i would add warm water in her sippy cup to about 1/4 cup milk. each day for about a week or so i would gradually increase the amount of milk in her cup. i did this too with my son when he made the switch. after the week they were both drinking whole regular milk without any problemz. good luck!

Carla - posted on 08/28/2009

My son is 15 mos now. He was BF until 10-11 mos exclusively, but transitioned to formula and milk with no issues. The only thing is, he will only drink his AM/PM milk warmed up from his sippy nipple on his bottle (this is the Born Free sippy cup nipple) During the day at day care, they've been able to get him to drink it cold with meals from a regular sippy cup. I have yet to be successful at this. All kids are different, so just keep trying to add it to something familiar, even milk in a regular bottle warmed up. Then ween them to the sippy cup and warm it less and less until they will drink it cold.

Good luck!!!

Sandy - posted on 08/27/2009

The only way I was able to get my son, 14 months & breast fed, to drink milk was to start with Vanilla Soy Milk and I have slowly been adding cows milk to it a little more each day.

Carol - posted on 08/26/2009

You could try rice milk or soymilk instead. My son's allergic to milk so he drinks ricemilk and the fact that he's not on cow's milk isn't doing any harm. You would want to make sure she gets enough good fats from other sources though. I tried soymilk w/ him and he doesn't like it, but rice milk he chugs - so worth a shot!

Amy - posted on 08/26/2009

My older daughter gave her a few sips of choc. milk. then I filled a sippy cup with milk and gave it to her all day to drink. 1st day was ok by the sencond day she was fine with it.

Cassandra - posted on 08/26/2009

gerber makes these little things called smart-sips they come in three flavors plain mild strawberry and vanilla and they arent that expensive they are milked based I did half whole milk half of the mild strawberry in my sons sippy at first then i went 1/4 smart sip 3/4 milk and then to all milk and by that time i had no issues

Katherine - posted on 08/26/2009

hi kara, one suggestions that i can give u is for example there are is one product which is great a little on the expensive side but great its called pediasure it has a bunch on vitamens and minerals and pediatric approved, try that first just so she can start tasting new things there is also milk from graduates vanilla chocolate of strawberry, this are all better then milk. OneLast Option u can try it might seem kind of harsh but this is just the baby being stuburn. Give hive milk she might not want it, so dont feed her anything when she is hungry she will ask again give her milk again. eventually she will take it.its the hard way but she will learn to drink that.hope the advie is good .

Sara-Dawn - posted on 08/26/2009

My daughter didn't take to milk right away either with breastfeeding. I had to warm it up a bit (my hubby used a thermometer to make sure it was body temp when he did it!), and, as silly as it sounds, I had to try different sippy cups before she'd go for it. If you are giving her the milk in the same cups she has always used for water or juice, you may need to try a different one - new colour, new style, etc. The disposable cups are what did the trick for my daughter. Good luck!!

Sheila - posted on 08/26/2009

Hii Kara-Lyn, I am Sheila. How is your daughter now? dealt with the milk issue yet? I saw you got brilliant suggestions too...
My 14 months old son has issues with milk too. he breast feeds only but I hope he will get to take milk soon.
Good luck.

Tara-Anne - posted on 08/25/2009

I know this sounds a bit of a backtrack but do you own an express pump?

Express some milk and put in the sippy cup with 1/4cup of regular full cream milk.

Once she gets used to that, do half and half....then 3/4 full cream 1/4 breast milk then she should like full cream. That may help??

Marcie - posted on 08/25/2009

Have you tried warming up the milk a tad so that it is closer to the tempurature of breast milk? This worked for me, even though my daughter will drink cold water from the Brita jug.

Colleen - posted on 08/25/2009

My son won't drink cows milk at all. Even when I mixed pumped breast milk. I've had luck with vanilla flavored soy milk and then gradually switching to plain soy milk. My WIC nutritionist wasn't concerned if he wouldn't drink milk as long as he drinks plenty of water and gets enough calcium from cheese, yogurt, etc. He also recommended sprinkling powdered milk on his food. Good Luck!

Koryn - posted on 08/24/2009

I'm still breast feeding my son (he'll be 15 months on the 2nd) and he too refuses to drink cow's milk. I've tried adding breast milk to it, smashed strawberries, vanilla and even chocolate syrup. He still won't touch it, at most he'll take 1 or 2 sips. I honestly stopped trying for a few months, it doesn't make sense to me to force it, especially since he's still breast feeding. I just try and give him yogurt, cheese, even ice cream every now and again for the vitamin D and calcium, although he probably gets sufficient vitamins and minerals from the breast milk. I'll probably try again around 18 months.

Steph - posted on 08/22/2009

My son was breastfed as well and didn't love the transition to milk. i found a sugar free vanilla flavoring that i put in his milkcups and he drank that for two months, i just put less and less in and now he's just on milk. when i was having trouble our nutritionist recommended giving him cheerios in milk instead of dry so he's getting some milk and sort of getting used to the taste. good luck

Diane - posted on 08/15/2009

A friend is having the same trouble. She has tried putting a little bit of vanilla in the milk. She is now trying mixing in rice milk, since it's sweeter, maybe that would help. It seems to be doing the trick for her.

Charlotte - posted on 08/15/2009

try it warm with some sugar in it

Jacey - posted on 08/13/2009

try and pump your breast milk and mix it with that one ounce at a time and do it slowly over a couple weeks less breast milk and more cows milk...I didn't breast feed but this is how I had to do it with my son but with formula instead cause he didn't like the taste either now hes on straight milk and loving it