How many more months of formula are ahead with an 11-month-old?

July 27, 2015 9:52 AM

Should I buy formula in bulk for an 11-month-old baby? I want to follow his lead on weaning, but I also don't want to waste money or formula. I'm looking for advice from parents who let their babies self-wean.

My baby will be 11 months old tomorrow. He is in daycare full-time. I am still pumping and nursing, but we had to start supplementing with formula at daycare in May (he was 8 months old) and at home last weekend (at 10 months old) because of my low supply these days. Now that we're buying a steady supply of formula, I am wondering how much formula I can buy in bulk at this age without getting too much and wasting it.

I know the traditional advice is to wean the baby to cow's milk & solid food by 12 months, and while we will be talking & consulting with our doctor, I am not interested in pushing the baby towards weaning. I'd rather he did it at his own speed. He always does best when I let him lead! So I plan to let him self-wean from the bottle.

In terms of solid food, he was slow with getting into the spirit of it. He's always refused spoon-fed foods, but is now willing to try a big variety of foods he can feed himself. He sits down for meals and gets lots of food to test, explore, and throw on the floor, but he's not serious about getting calories from it yet. I am doubtful we will be there at exactly the 12-month mark on the dot.

Most of his nutrition comes from a combination of formula and breastmilk. I will stop pumping at 12 months, but I do want to continue to nurse at home until he self-weans from that, even as eventually it's a comfort thing and not a nutritional thing. But as we move further away from breastmilk as a main source of nutrition, I stand in the supermarket and wonder how much formula to stock up. A month? Two months? Six months? I hate to waste money, but I don't want to have a bunch of wasted formula, either.

Any advice from those who let your baby self-wean from the bottle/formula? Should I just purchase as we go or should I stock up a few months' worth at this point?

posted by aabbbiee to Food & Drink (28 answers total)

I don't understand why you wouldn't just put the cow's milk in the bottle?

In Canada (and some other countries) recommendations permit ditching formula at 9mo. Unless you have a very unique situation there is not going to be any sort of benefit at all to giving a baby or toddler who has access to breast and cow's milks any formula.

I'm on mobile and can't do a good job with linking, apologies, but Google Dr Jack Newman's advice on breastfeeding and other foods, working and nursing, etc. He is better off being supplemented with solids and water while you are not around.

There's not going to be a point at which him nursing at home will not be a nutritional thing. Older tots are quite good at extracting a good amount of milk in a short time, and a lot of the benefits of the milk are dose-dependent; eg, the longer the nursing, the greater the health benefit conferred. But if he is not drinking enough from you and not eating/drinking enough elsewhere, formula will do nothing for an older baby that cow's milk won't.

I would stop buying formula immediately; there's lots of evidence that it is not necessary or useful for an 11mo, and it's possible all it's doing is taking away his appetite for more nutritious solids. The stuff is carefully engineered to do its thing for young infants, but at this point...well, there are good reasons nobody suggests that adults drink formula, kwim? It has a lot of cheap fats and sweeteners that are not needed.

(I would go ahead with letting him self-wean off bottles.)
posted by kmennie at 10:05 AM on July 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

I don't understand why you would have to wean your baby off breast milk before giving cow's milk instead of formula from the bottle. My doctor advised switching from formula to cow's milk at 10 months. As far as I know, it would be perfectly fine to keep breastfeeding as well until the baby is ready to wean.
posted by barnoley at 10:09 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

My first self-weaned at 11 months, of all the cruel things a nursing baby can do. I pumped exclusively for a few weeks and, when my supply ran low, I put in a call to the pediatrician to see if I needed to start giving him formula. They told me no, that it was fine to just give him cow's milk before he turned one. Now that my second is 13 months, he's still nursing, drinking cow's milk, and drinking frozen breast milk, depending on what we're doing and what's at hand.
posted by kelseyfrost at 10:11 AM on July 27, 2015

Best answer: To actually weigh in on your question: I wouldn't think it makes sense to buy lots of formula at this point.
posted by kelseyfrost at 10:13 AM on July 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

The question of what the kiddo drinks is orthogonal to how it's delivered, although they sometimes get packaged together as a single recommendation to switch to cow's milk in a cup. You can switch to cow's milk in the bottle (there's no real nutritional benefit to formula anymore), but still let him self-wean.

We stopped with bottles for daycare/etc. by about one year, but my son kept nursing at least at night until he was almost four.
posted by cogitron at 10:17 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I did the nursing/supplementing thing too. I'm not sure how much your son is eating, but by ten months we used about 1.5 cans of formula a week. At 11 months, we started introducing cow's milk in the bottle. First by mixing with formula, then just a bottle a day, then replacing all the formula bottles he normally drank. That month he only went through about 2 cans of formula and I ended up donating a bunch. I hope that helps!
posted by galvanized unicorn at 10:25 AM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

We switched to cow's milk in bottles and stopped pumping around 11-12 months; my son continued to nurse at home and have some bottles until just shy of 3. I'd see what he thinks of cow's milk as part of an ever-expanding diet, and switch over whenever you think he's getting enough nutrition from other sources. The timing of that is so variable from child to child that it's hard to say for sure, though I do know a lot of kids who got a lot better with solids right around the 1 year mark.
posted by tchemgrrl at 10:27 AM on July 27, 2015

With both my kids the pediatrician advised to stop formula at 12 months and switch to cow's milk. To echo everyone above, I wouldn't buy more than a month's worth of formula.
posted by amro at 10:29 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

My understanding is the current advice is to start weaning at or after 12 months, not by 12 months. You're okay!

If you switch from formula to cow's milk (possibly mixing the two at first if he's not into it) and keep experimenting with solids, you will be fine. Toddler serving sizes are rather dinky, and he won't be growing quite as rapidly as he did during the first year, so it'll seem like he's eating a lot less, but he'll be getting enough.

I wouldn't buy more than a few weeks' worth, and donate anything that doesn't get opened.
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:32 AM on July 27, 2015

I'd start mixing milk into the formula now and see how he does (make a 3:1 or 4:1 mix of formula to cow's milk). Increase it every few days if baby is doing fine. Hopefully you'll only need this current can of formula (maybe one more) to get him through to full-time milk.

My experience: My baby decided bottles were easier than my chest around 8 months and was on formula from then on. He's also been a very enthusiastic and good eater and was clearly getting plenty of nutrition from food. We started mixing in milk around 11 months but it made him extra spitty so we backed off, bought a new can of formula, and tried again this week at 11.5 months. He's now he's easily doing cups that are between 1/4 and 1/2 cow's milk.

One thing I found interesting was he didn't seem to like that his bottle flavor changed. So we made the cold-turkey change from bottles to entirely sippy cups (which he had been using for water). The first few days he he'd refuse formula/milk until it was in a bottle if he saw one on the counter which made it clear he was refusing in no small part due to the comfort of a bottle and not just the flavor. We hid all the bottles and after 2 days, he got over it and he's gupling down milk/formula just as much as he was before. We've taken this as a lesson and give him a variety of different types of cups (hard/soft spouts, straws, regular cups) so that he doesn't get attached to any one thing.
posted by adorap0621 at 10:46 AM on July 27, 2015

A month of formula, and then switch to cow's milk at 12 months and keep breastfeeding until you're done and he weans!

At 12 months we introduced cow's milk for daytime meals and snacks in a sippy cup. They didn't have it in a bottle so they didn't really fight about how it tasted different. For the first feed of the morning and the last feed of the evening, they kept having breast or formula bottle until we ran out the open container of formula. Then it was sippy cups of cow's milk or breast, and the rest of the formula went to the women's shelter.

Those morning and night feeds were more bottle-requiring because the kids woke up STARRRRRVING and too frantic for a sippy cup, and the efficiency of the bottle (or breast) was better for getting a fully tummy before bed. But during the daytime when they were having solid-food meals and snacks, and sippy cup did great, and it was an easy transition to cups and milk doing it that way. The bottles disappeared by the end of the next month and they both continued on morning and night breast feedings until about 15 months, but less frantically as they got more nutrition from their solid food.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:48 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

You never want to stock up on formula in case baby develops an allergy from it. Buy as needed. I don't remember ever putting cow's milk in a bottle. As soon as baby is old enough to hold a sippy cup, then baby gets a cup of milk. Bottles can then be used for water until baby is tired of bottles. If baby is not eating much real food then formula, in a bottle or sippy cup, can still be given.
posted by myselfasme at 10:55 AM on July 27, 2015

Response by poster: Just for clarification, I want to continue to provide formula until the baby is getting most of his nutrition from solid foods. He is nowhere near that, and while he might get there in a month, it seems unlikely!
I will not be introducing cow's milk until after 12 months as per current recommendations, and then I will go very slowly as cow's milk allergy runs in my family!

I used the term "weaning" in a confusing way- apologies. I meant it really in terms of the tipping point from primarily liquid food to primarily solid food.

So formula IS needed for now, in a bottle or in a cup, but should I stock up? That's the question.
posted by aabbbiee at 11:00 AM on July 27, 2015

What's the shelf life of formula? Just how much do you have to buy before it's noticeably cheaper? Do you know other parents who use the same type and would you be able to sell/trade/gift it if you end up not needing as much as you purchased?

I am not a parent, I just like to buy things in bulk because I'm cheap and those are the questions I would be thinking about. Formula seems like something that will always be easy to get rid of if you have too much on hand (babies gotta eat!), but then again, I don't know if the shelf life is in the span of weeks, months, or years.
posted by yeahlikethat at 11:22 AM on July 27, 2015

Is it a cow's milk based formula that you're using now...? I've got to think that unless you and the day care have been scrupulous to avoid dairy, the kid's had it by now, and there's not going to be a point to making a slow transition.

I think you have your answer, which is: you want to keep supplementing until 12mo, so you need one more month's worth. There isn't an advantage to toddlers drinking formula, even if they are still getting most of their nutrition from liquid sources. This is a good page on "what to feed the baby." It just doesn't matter how weaned or not weaned to solids he is -- you're just past the point where what's required to sustain an infant is a relevant issue. He can have breast milk, cow's milk, and whatever he feels like nibbling off your plate. Bottle/no bottle is a separate issue. Surely he would be fine just nursing when he is with you and having a cup when he's not, though.
posted by kmennie at 12:08 PM on July 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

My son didn’t eat a wide variety of solid foods so I continued to use formula well after 12 months. The main reason people switch at 12 months is because cow’s milk is less expensive; there is no reason you couldn’t use up the formula even if you overbought. That said, few people have an issue switching from dairy formula to cow’s milk, so if you want to save money and don’t think your kid needs the somewhat more nutritionally complete formula, buy less.
posted by metasarah at 12:26 PM on July 27, 2015

Given your update: I don't think anyone can really say how much formula you'll need. My kid learned to eat a lot of solids quickly and there was a noticeable decrease in how much formula he was drinking as a result. It didn't happen right away but all of a sudden, it was very clear. That's why we decided to start transitioning from formula to cow's milk around 11ish months. As kmennie noted, we weren't very concerned with allergies because we were sure he'd been exposed to lactose plenty of times through his foods, formula, and whatever cheese and milk was making its way through my system and out in my breast milk. We just decided to do a slower transition in case the spittiness we saw was related.
posted by adorap0621 at 12:28 PM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

My kids both went from breast-milk to real food during the period 10-13 months. No formula was involved, though we tried with no. 2, who was not easy to feed.
I am not allergic, and neither is anyone I know, but I am also not a fan of un-formed cows milk. So basically my kids went from mother's milk to other food stuffs. Generally, it was vegetables mashed with some sort of fat - oil or butter or cream-cheese or bacon fat. Once or twice a week there would be meat or fish involved.
posted by mumimor at 12:42 PM on July 27, 2015

Best answer: I think at your point you could easily buy 2 months worth of formula and then reasses your needs in 60 days. You child is just on the cusp of the food transition and I think it's impossible to know if he's going to be "done" bottles in 3 weeks or 12 weeks+.
posted by saradarlin at 12:46 PM on July 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't bother stocking up. I exclusively breastfed, but at 12 months I started offering cow milk during the day, and within a week he had happily transitioned to that entirely for daytime, and also stepped up his solid foods. I kept nursing in the mornings/evenings until he self-weaned and it worked out just fine.
posted by gatorae at 12:51 PM on July 27, 2015

Is it a cow's milk based formula that you're using now...? I've got to think that unless you and the day care have been scrupulous to avoid dairy, the kid's had it by now, and there's not going to be a point to making a slow transition.

This. There's cow's milk dairy in standard formula (in a powdered form), and cow's milk proteins are unique in that, if you're eating dairy, they're present in your breastmilk (see kellymom on dairy protein allergy). The reason for formula is that feeding solely cow's milk to infants can cause intestinal bleeding and anemia--but formula still contains cow's milk, and unless you're dairy free, your milk has cow's milk proteins in it, too.

As for the question in the transition to a mostly-solid diet, for us the switch happened in a rather abrupt manner around 14 months while doing babyled weaning. We could tell because her poop was disgusting and adult-like. But I gather my daughter is on the late end of things, and she still nurses way more than most 18 month olds I know.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 3:05 PM on July 27, 2015

The only super useful thing about having a lot of formula on hand is if your lifestyle is chaotic and you run out of things often and it would be reassuring to have formula on hand (why I have diapers, wet wipes and milk in bulk) so baby's basic needs were always met no matter the crisis. You can usually give away extra formula later on - if it's got at least a month to the expiry date, it can be very very welcome at shelters and food banks.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:51 PM on July 27, 2015

As an aside since you say that your baby is nowhere near getting most of his/her nutrition from solids, you may be surprised how little solid foods baby actually needs at first. I think my pediatrician said that at 12 months, a tablespoon of food at each meal was fine (but check that with your pedi).
posted by amro at 6:08 PM on July 27, 2015

I always counted "weaning" as weaning from the breast, which you can do on your own sweet time regardless of whether the kid's otherwise using cups or bottles, and what's in them. My kids' solid food consumption went up when they stopped getting pumped breastmilk at daycare, so I don't know how effective it is to wait for them to take the lead on replacing liquids with solids.

One thing I will say (and this is a HUGE YMMV) is that my kids were pretty nonchalant about the bottle-to-cup transition at 12 months - we did the "cow's milk comes in a cup, breast milk (or formula, if we'd used it) comes in a bottle" thing and it worked quite well for us. But given their personalities at, say, 18 months, I could see trying a transition then becoming a major, major battle. At 12 months their opinions weren't that strong. At 18 months, two things happen. One, they become extremely averse to trying new things, and the other is that they get Opinions, and WOE BETIDE THE GROWNUP WHO CROSSES THEM. If I were trying to switch Nanopanda from bottle to cup right now I'm pretty sure she'd hurl the cup at my face on endless repeat until I caved. For my son, this phase lasted til nearly 3.

My suggestion would be to start offering cups of water now, to play with; try the switch to cups of milk at 12 months, give it a week, see if the kid's eating and drinking ok, and if it's not working you switch back for awhile. As with many things (sleep training, toilet training, etc), there's no way to know unless you try whether your kid's going to shrug and roll with it, or whether you need to step back and try again later. It's not like there's a point of no return.

And once again, YMMV YMMV YMMV.
posted by telepanda at 8:39 AM on July 28, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you to those who answered my question.

I am frustrated with the anti-formula nature of some of these comments, and the implication that my son is getting what he needs from me, breastmilk-wise, when I have already said that he is not. If denying women's experiences wasn't such an endemic part of my experience with lactivists/lactivism, it would be easier to ignore here.

Formula is a substitute for human milk. Today's formula is a technological wonder; it's never been safer or healthier. It is literally life-saving.
Not all versions of formula contain elements of cow's milk or milk from non-human mammals. Cow's milk, on its own, is not a substitute for human milk, and recommending it for infants under 12 months old is, to say the least, quite controversial.
posted by aabbbiee at 9:51 AM on July 29, 2015

recommending it for infants under 12 months old is, to say the least, quite controversial.

It's not particularly outré. It is the recommendation in Canada and a number of other first-world countries, ones with lower infant mortality rates than the largest country that advocates for no cow's milk until 12mo.

Googling around just now I notice the "when should I stop using formula" discussions are very different on various parenting sites depending on the country; where the answers came from may have influenced the discussion here...
posted by kmennie at 3:48 PM on July 29, 2015

Response by poster: Are you saying there's a link between lower infant mortality and an earlier introduction to cow's milk? Can you provide a citation, please?
posted by aabbbiee at 9:32 AM on July 31, 2015

Response by poster: An update, six months later:

I just had a discussion with a friend of mine who is freaking out about the cow's milk transition for her 11mo. It's amazing how these things feel so important in the moment, but months later there's way more perspective. (I tried to answer her questions remembering my own anxieties.)

As a short answer to my own question in the OP, we continued to provide formula to our baby until he was 15-16 months old, gradually providing fewer and fewer bottles both at daycare and home, until finally he was drinking just one bottle a day (in the middle of the night). We switched that to cow's milk, and within a few weeks he started sleeping through the night, skipping that bottle entirely. A few weeks after that, he cold-turkey quit nursing, much to my disappointment and discomfort. Now, if/when he wakes in the night, we offer him water from a sippy cup only. It's been about six weeks since he's had a bottle at all.

I wrote this question on the precipice of big changes, and part of writing this question was trying to get my mind around those changes because they freaked me out a lot. But then they started happening, for myriad reasons, and we weathered the changes and did things gradually and everything was okay. First off, my little guy transitioned into a new room at daycare where all the babies ate together at the same table, and this peer influence pushed him from "tepid experimenter of food" to "all the food goes in my belly now" within weeks if not days.
At 12 months, but not any earlier, we agreed to allow him to try cow's milk from a sippy cup at daycare, and we tried to provide it at home too. Frankly, cow's milk just weirds me out. Not just re: family allergies- it's just weird. And it turns out the baby isn't much of a fan either, as he didn't drink much of what was offered. And then it further turns out that the baby is borderline anemic, and we've had to limit his dairy because it blocks iron absorption. Not entirely, but we stopped offering it at home in favor of cheese.
The new teachers in his daycare room were very gentle with me with winding down the bottles. They did not push or force or passive-aggressively comment on what the other babies his age were doing, which I appreciated. By 13 months, he was still drinking two bottles a day at daycare (and one at bedtime, one (or even more) at night, plus nursing). By 14 months, he was done with daycare bottles, but still doing 2-3 at home between bedtime and nighttime. Then finally he was down to just the one in the night, and we stopped buying formula.

Again, I knew the changes were coming when I wrote this question, but it was hard to see the path. At the time we were spending a lot of money on formula. It was a significant expense, week after week. But we did switch him to the toddler version of his formula, which was about half the price of the infant formula, and between that difference and the gradual-but-obvious-decline-of-bottles, we were almost immediately spending quite a lot less.

To anyone coming after me who is facing this transition with anxiety, I recommend following your gut instincts as much as possible. I do not regret the decisions we made, and personally I'm glad we did things gradually! Whatever your choice, eventually this too will pass. A few months later, I've got plenty of new concerns and worries but these are all in my rearview mirror.
posted by aabbbiee at 3:09 PM on February 24, 2016 [3 favorites]