When does giving milk becoming necessary?

[roses25]

I have a 12 month old that still nurses atleast 10-12 times a day. He's sensitive to dairy and gluten. When does it become necessary to start giving him some type of dairy free milk?

Carolyn

[ewe+lamb]

To be honest the only milk that is essential is yours, its made just for him and although I can understand that living with a dairy and gluten diet - I presume you're dairy and gluten free - can be hard if you can continue on breastfeeding then really its the best thing for him, may not be what you wanted to hear but soy is also an allergen so may not be so good for him, hugs for you but you're doing a great job.

[briome]

Never! We have a dairy-free household. None of my boys get glasses of replacement milk... we keep almond milk around for cereal and baking.

Cows milk is marketed in such a way that it almost seems like we HAVE to have it, but that certainly is not true. There are many other foods that provide the same nutrients and having something in a white colored drink does not make it better for you. My kids drink water and very watered down juice sometimes. Some friends laugh at me because I'm such an anti-juice person but my kids totally go nutty and want to drink juice all day......talk about liquid candy calories!

I agree with the PP about your milk being the best. Keep that up as long as you are able. I'm tandem nursing my 1m old girl and my 2 1/2 yr old and he just had a cold that went away very quick....I think partialy because of my breastmilk that he was getting. My almost 6 yr old occasionaly asks for 'chocolate milk' or hot chocolate as a treat and we have almond milk for that but we never just have a glass of 'milk' for them to drink. I think it seems odd for a lot of us because we were brought up having a cup of milk at a meal. Grandparents get confused about what to give them when they are used to getting a cup of milk for a child when they are hungry, before bed etc.... but I think it is OK to redconsider that knee-jerk reaction. I guess I am kinda anti-mainstream dairy milk and it's marketing and I think Americans overdrink the stuff.

[ewe+lamb]

he he - we don't really do the dairy products at all but some times I wonder if I come across abit too strong - lol anyway i just wanted to say in addition to briome's post that we as mammals are the only animals bar cats that drink another animals milk - sort of makes it abit icky to think about it really; as far as i'm concerned when our kids CLW is the last time that they get need to get milk - other than when they are ill and it's always my milk, we can do and achieve so much more with a little bit of imagination!! Think out of the box and maybe look up Milk Money and Madness - great book on the dairy industry

[alegna]

Little humans need human milk. Little cows need cow milk. Little non-dairys need non-dairy milk?

Never. Just keep nursing. Around 2 or 3 his need will taper off and at some point he'll stop nursing... then he doesn't need milk any more.

I didn't even OFFER (cow's) milk to mine until they were 18mo-2yrs. And then it's a VERY once in awhile kind of thing.

-Angela