I am running out of breastmilk and my baby is 11 months old?

Question

I breastfeed my baby in the am and pm, I pump twice a day and she has 2 bottles at daycare. I am barely able to keep up with the 2 bottles and do not want to supplement with formula, when can I give her whole milk? Do I have to wait until she is 1?

Answer 1

I'd run it by the Ped but the age guidelines are just that; guidelines. I don't think one month early is going to do any damage. I would suggest though continue pumping and wean the baby by doing ½ breastmilk and ½ whole milk and just keep lowering the amount of BM in the bottle until she is weaned. That would probably be 2 weeks to a month anyway.

Answer 2

Realistically unless your daughter is getting almost all of her nutrition from food then she needs breastmilk or formula. I know formula is nasty.

If you can add one or two feedings from the breast. Say one as soon as you get home and one before bed, and one or two in the morning then it is more than likely she is still getting enough breastmilk and will do fine with just food and water or cow milk during the day. You may find if the daycare only gives her water she will drink a lot more from you during the time you are together which will increase your supply as well.

However cow milk is nutritionally a very poor suppliment so I would try to limit if it using it at all. I think one bottle a day would be fine, but I wouldn't go over that. Many doctors are now saying that toddlers need formula until 18 months or even longer.

Answer 3

If she wasn't so close I'd ask why not formula but since she's one month shy of a year I'd just put her on whole milk. If it makes you feel any better I had a friend who's doctor had her put her now 6 year old on whole milk at 6 months and he's fine.

Answer 4

It might be time to wean.. just a thought. My son never had a single ounce of formula and I think I was just done breastfeeding by 11 1/2 months. I was exhausted and dreading it too.

Anyway my midwife said it was OK for him to be on whole milk at that point because he didn't have any signs of allergies when it was mixed in with his cereal. And she was right!

Check Kellymom for the best breastfeeding advice on the web.

Answer 5

It is only one month but maybe you should ask your Dr. to be sure because it is one more month of added nutrition that your baby wont be getting. Why not just buy the formula for a month? I don't see why this would be such a problem. Nestle also makes something called next step that you may be able to use.

Answer 6

Yes, go ahead and give her whole milk. You can continue to pump if you like. 11 months of breastfeeding is great, I'm sure she's benefited from it. Now it's time for her to get her nutrients elsewhere, from milk and new foods.

Good luck!

Answer 7

you can give juice and between the solids breastmilk and juice she willl be fine she might as well get used to some juice now anyways if you are not comfortable with that then you can give milk at 11 months you are soo close but my son who was breastfed wouldn't drink milk bc breastmilk is sweeter and this was at like 15 months but he did love his apple juice

Answer 8

You shouldn't give a baby cows milk until she is at least two. The more research they do on it, the more they are finding out that early introduction to cows milk can and leaky gut syndrome later in life.
You've probably heard this before, but let's recap - cow milk is meant to feed cows, who have four chambers in their stomachs. Since their bodies do so much more digesting than ours do, the cow milk molecules are much, much bigger, and they need to go through all these chanbers before they are proplerly digested. People do not have the capacity to break down these molecules to the smallest size. This is why breast milk or goats milk is better - they are made to be digested in a one chamber stomach.
Formula is made to mimic breastmilk and is a much better choice than cow milk (why are you against formula?) because the molecules are the right size.

Please do some research on leaky gut syndrome and lactose intolerance before you make this decision. You wouldn't give your baby solid food before they're ready, why give them large molecule milk before they are ready?

Answer 9

Yes, you do have to wait until she is 1 for her to have whole milk. it's much too rich for her little belly. You can't really run out of breast milk, the more you breastfeed the more you produce. Unless you aren't eating right. Avoid caffiene and drink plenty of fluids. Other than that, I'd ask your doctor.

Answer 10

Congradulations on breastfeeding your child this far some mothers can even produce breastmilk. I don't see what the harm would be in trying to give your child whole milk at this age...try some when you are are home and she how she takes it.