Just wanted to get an idea of what other parents are doing before we go to the ped next week for Molly's one year checkup.

Bit of history: DH is mildly lactose intolerant, and our ped is aware of this. As an infant, he was hospitalized for a week because he was so sick from milk based formulas. He was on soy formula and then never drank milk much as a child because it made him sick. His mom only bought whole for his dad, and they didn't believe him when he said it made him sick (whole 'nother vent there entirely), so he managed. Loves cheese, never had a problem with it, but doesn't do well with full fat ice creams. He can eat frozen yogurt and light ice cream no problem, and now he drinks 1% milk with no problems.

Molly had all kinds of reactions to milk based formulas (I BF until she was 6 months old and she was constantly spitting/throwing up) so we switched her to soy formula at 6 1/2 months, and she had no trouble at all. We gradually moved her to whole milk, 1 oz a week leading up to her 1st birthday and she's been on full milk now for about 2 weeks. However, the spitting up has returned, and it's always milk she throws up. Not a whole lot, maybe a couple tablespoons, but at least every other day she spits up. Yesterday she spit up three times. I'm thinking it's the milk.

She eats lots of other dairy, yogurt, cottage cheese etc. I'm definitely going to mention it to her pediatrician next week, and I'm hoping we'll get the OK to move her to 1% milk now, since she eats enough other dairy products to get the fat benefits. There was one day she got 1% milk for two meals because we were out of whole, and she sucked it down and never spit it up. With her whole milk, it can sometimes take her almost an hour to drink the whole cup. That makes me wonder if it's bothering her?

So anyone else out there switch their little ones to something less than whole milk before age 2? Alyssa's milk thread got me wondering.

Yes, we did. Actually to skim. Neither one of the girls would drink whole. They just didn't like it. But they'd drink skim and 1%. Since we drank skim we just kept it at that. Our Ped. was 100% fine with that. He knew that the girls got tons of cheese, yogurt, etc and were getting plenty of fat from that in their diet.

I can't imagine your Ped. would have an issue too. IMO it's more important that they get the vitamins and nutrients from the milk than the fat content, especially since you said they get fat from other dairy.

Sean went straight to 2% milk when he turned 1. It was purely due to my laziness and not wanting to buy 3 different kinds of milk for our house. Sean's always been big for his age anyway and eats a good variety of food, so we've never had to worry about his diet too much.

We did for Jada; she had lots of stomach issues with whole milk so around 18-20 months we started giving her 2% and it was so much better for her. We told the dr. afterwards and because her weight was still at an average pace she was fine with it.

i know i did for tony, but i can't remember what age, definately before 2. he was a TANK and didn't need all that fat :lol:.

I actually asked my ped about this today. While Norah is older than Molly, she still vomits when she drinks too much milk. Yet she seems to do ok with cheese and yogurt. And she never vomited on soy milk. She suggested trying to switch her to a lower fat milk and see if it helps her digest it. Norah is a skinny girl (18 mos....20lbs!), but she gets plenty of fat in cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, and avocado. So she's not worried.

Thanks everyone!! Karri, Molly is also little for her age, she maybe weighs 18 pounds. She eats anything you put in front of her that doesn't move :lol: so I'm sure she'll do fine.

Already today she's spit up 3x and it's not even 2pm. I'm going to give her 1% for dinner and for the next couple days and see how she does on it. Our ped is the BEST ever, and we agree on so many parenting issues (her son is just a week older than Emily, so we've traveled the new mommy road together) and I'm sure she'll be OK with it.

Well, I don't even give my kids milk. Really, the only things in milk that are nutrtious are the fat (kids need plenty of fat for brain development), vitamin D, and Calcium. You can get calcium easily from other sources, like brocoli, spinach, almonds, etc and you can get vitamin D from playing outside...so as long as she is getting fat from another source I wouldn't worry about it. In fact, since they are playing outside every day now we have even stopped giving them fortified juice for the summer, since they can get vitamin d from the sun, and calcium from other foods. They also still both nurse 3-5 times a day.

Ohh, and both my kids are kind of on the skinny side(ok, Janelle is really really really skinny)...Janelle is 21lbs (2 1/2 years old) and Kincaid is 22lbs at 1 year old.