Baby refusing to drink cow's milk? Here's what you can do

Cow milk is the preferred choice for babies that are 12 months or older. This is the time when babies need more nutrition for their proper growth and development. While formula milk can also be used, the majority prefers cow's full cream milk for babies or cow's full cream milk for toddlers. As per the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), 12 months babies and older can have up to 2 1/2 cups of cow's milk every day. AAP also recommends that parents use full cream milk for their toddlers. But, what can one do if the baby refuses to drink cow's milk? Well, there's nothing to worry. The baby just needs to adjust to the new taste of cow's milk. Here are some safe ways to make your baby start liking cow's milk.

Warm the milk

Cow's full cream milk for babies and cow's full cream milk for toddlers can be warmed a bit to mimic the natural temperature of breast milk. The closer you can match the warmth of cow's milk to breast milk, the easier it would be for your baby to accept it readily. A few hit and trials would help you achieve the most appropriate temperature for cow's milk. For example, if you have a microwave, you can test with different time settings such as 20 seconds, 30 seconds, etc. and note down your baby's response to find the best temperature of cow's milk that would make it likable to your baby.

Slightly sweeten the cow's milk

Breast milk is naturally sweeter than cow's milk, which is why your baby may not like cow's milk initially. To make the transition, you can sweeten the cow's milk a bit and check your baby's response. With just a little bit of sweetness, your baby will start liking cow's milk. You can then gradually reduce the sweetness and eventually avoid it completely, when the baby has become accustomed to drinking cow's milk.

Do your own experiments

Some parents have reported good results by using straws, sippy cups or other fancy items that the baby may find interesting. The logic is that such products take the baby’s attention away from the milk’s taste, enabling her to accept cow’s milk without any issues. You can try your own methods to see what works best for your baby.

For your 12 months or older baby, you can also supplement with tasty dahi. However, cow’s tasty dahi should be given in limited quantities in comparison to cow’s full cream milk for babies and cow’s full cream milk for toddlers. 

Baby drinking almond milk develops scurvy

For many generations, people in India have relied on cow's full fat organic milk for meeting the nutritional needs of babies and toddlers. The use of cow's full cream milk for toddlers has turned out to be a good practice, as it has helped our young ones to grow mentally and physically strong. Even toned milk has worked well since double toned milk nutrition is mostly the same as full fat organic milk, excluding of course the amount of fat content. 

However, in recent times, many brands have started offering plant based milk products such as almond milk. This is not a sustainable development since it has been proven in laboratory studies that plant based milk products such as almond milk is not a whole food and is nutrient deficient. A case supporting this deficient nature of plant based milk products has recently come up in Spain. In this case, a 11-month baby, who was drinking only almond milk, has been diagnosed with Scurvy, a disease that is caused by the deficiency of Vitamin C. Details of this case have been published in the Pediatrics journal and it points out to the risks associated with plant based milk products for babies and toddlers. The baby was severely affected, as he used to be very unstable when in the sitting position. He remained tired and irritable, and would find it difficult to stand on a solid surface. Femur fractures were found during medical examination and extremely low Vitamin C levels, which prompted doctors to diagnose it as Scurvy. 

Some experts opine that in this particular case, the synthetic chemicals used in processing almond milk may be inhibiting the absorption of essential nutrients such as Vitamin C. Plant based milk products such as almond milk may appear to be nutrient rich in theory, but what they are essentially is factory produced and laden with chemicals. In comparison, cow’s full fat organic milk and cow’s full cream milk for toddlers are 100% natural, safe and healthy. 

Using plant based milk products is like going against nature. This may not be good since we are yet to fully understand how nature and our bodies work, especially in the long term. Till things are clearer, it would be a wise decision to use natural food sources such as full fat organic milk and full cream milk for toddlers. Even toned milk would be good since double toned milk nutrition is not very different from full fat milk, if you exclude the fat portion.