is follow on milk necessary?

jellyhead

not sure if this is the correct forum but it is about money in a way - follow on milks are usually cheaper, can be discounted and you can collect boots and tesco points on them (and spend boots points on them) so using follow on milk probably makes financial sense.

the thing is i'm not sure whther i should use it or not, and would welcome opinions from mums on here :-) my health visitor says it's just a gimmick to allow the milk companies to advertise and put you on their 'advice' mailing lists.

looking at the properties compared to extra or first milk it seems that follow on is more concentrated in most ways - extra iron but also extra calories, protein etc. my baby is 29 weeks old so he could have follow on now, but should he? he's been on pureed foods for less than a month. he was on 7 milk feeds a day and dropped that to 6. since starting solids he's dropped it to 5 milk feeds and has some drinks of water but he only drinks around 1-2 ounces of water per day.

if i gave him follow on milk for the 5 milk feeds would this reduce his appetite for food? he was on hungry baby milk but now he's on food i've thought maybe he should have the first baby milk instead as it has fewer calories. is follow on milk more suitable for babies who have dropped some milk feeds and are only having milk a couple of times a day? is it necessary at all if the baby eats a varied diet, is ordinary formula and then cows milk okay for most babies? mine is lactose intolerant so at the moment is not having any milk products or baby food that contains milk. he has colief in his formula to break down the lactose and at the moment still has a reaction if i try to cut down the colief, so he's not ready for lactose yet. i suppose this means he'll be having lots of milk feeds using colief for a while yet, so is follow on milk a bad idea?

stardoman

I think your health visitor is right on this occasion, as countries such as America which don't have restrictions on advertising first milks don't have follow on formula. The extra iron is often difficult for the baby to digest and can cause constipation (just as iron tablets can), so this is something to be aware of if you decide to use it.

Mandy.

Lady_E

Not sure if this helps ,but it is what I did with my two wonderful DS now aged 2 and 5.
DS1 was lactose intolerant and the hospital reccomended that he take Wysoy feeding formula (I could not get the hang of breast feeding BTW). I did this up until he was a year old , and then on the advice of the health visitor tried him on full fat cows milk .I am pleased to say he thorughly enjoyed it with no ill effects.DS2 was happy enough with breast milk till 6 weeks old and then went on to SMA white formula for hungry babies , and then at about 6-8 months old went onto full fat milk . Both DS have skimmed milk now as I believe that the fat content is way over and above their dietary needs. I am a bit cynical and would suggest that follow on milk is just another way of keeping you in the clutches of the formula manufacturers, but hey ho both DS are fit well and healthy . On another point, I dont think you get Clubcard points or Advantage points for Formula milks , but I could be wrong . Good luck and hope this helps x

StartingAgainKayla70

stardoman wrote:

I think your health visitor is right on this occasion, as countries such as America which don't have restrictions on advertising first milks don't have follow on formula. The extra iron is often difficult for the baby to digest and can cause constipation (just as iron tablets can), so this is something to be aware of if you decide to use it.

Mandy.

Couldnt agree with you more, my first two didnt have follow up milk but for some strange reason, I gave it to my third baby and ever since then CONSTIPATION oh my god, wished I had never gone there!!!!! Its only been the last month that she seems to have a poo without screaming.

I wouldnt touch follow on milk if ya paid me!

finc

I think the idea of follow on milk is to supplement their diet when weaning. It provides some extra vitamins and minerals that the other milk doesn't which can be useful if your baby doesn't have as much milk but doesn't eat a varied diet.

I wouldn't bother with it though as making sure they have a balanced and varied diet should see to any vitamin and mineral problems.

jellyhead

i've done a bit of net research and the constipation is mentioned a lot. iron in formula is not as digestible as iron in breastmilk and i know from experience that iron supplements don't have a good effect on my digestion :rotfl: vit C makes the iron absorbable but his tiny tummy wouldn't manage fruit/veg at the same time as having the milk. the health visitor has said my baby might grow out of his lactose intolerance by a year.

black-saturn

My DD2 stopped breastfeeding on her own at about 7 months oldish. She just wouldnt feed anymore so I tried putting her on the bottle. She just wouldnt drink any kind of formula milk at all. I even tried her with the flavoured ones but with no luck. In the end after a week she hadnt had any milk for all that time and I was going frantic so I tried her on full fat regular cows milk and she drank the lot down. So I just put her straight on to ordinary full fat milk. The health visitor had a blue fit and told me it wasn't nutritional enough for her. But she loved it and shes almost 9 now and never had any adverse effects from it. Afterall formula milk was only invented about 35 years ago so anyone older than that was either breastfed or fed cows milk.

mummytofour

As other have said my baby got VERY VERY BAD CONSTIPATION from follow on milk, I now keep them on the normal formula, untill 9 months to a yr, when I change over to cows milk.

bobsa1

I have 3 dd's and have never used follow on milk. Many years ago when I had a truly sensible health visitor she advised that normal cows milk was fine from a year, formula or breast milk up to then.

I got a copy of Annabelle Carmel baby and toddler meal planner, which has a brill section on healthy diets for kids and the fact that if given the correct food to choose from children will naturally eat well ( hard to believe at times!!)

All 3 of mine are happy and healthy.

chivers1977

hi, I posted on the other thread re follow on milk. Jacob was sxc BF until 3 months, then introduced 1 FF at 11pm, then at 5 months introduced another at 11am. He now is 8 months and has 2 BF and 1 bottle a day. He was on hungry milk from about 4 months and I have kept him on it as saw no reason to swap. He went onto follow on at 6 months as there was no difference in composition apart from the iron; He eats a balanced diet so not necessary but price/points makes a difference. He is definitely not constipated = at least 4 a day LOL!!!! :rotfl: it is up to you at the end of the day. clearly they do push loads of money into the advertising to entice people but I weighed up the pros and cons and ir has woeked for us!

fesdufun

Lady_E wrote:

Not sure if this helps ,but it is what I did with my two wonderful DS now aged 2 and 5.
DS1 was lactose intolerant and the hospital reccomended that he take Wysoy feeding formula (I could not get the hang of breast feeding BTW). I did this up until he was a year old , and then on the advice of the health visitor tried him on full fat cows milk .I am pleased to say he thorughly enjoyed it with no ill effects.DS2 was happy enough with breast milk till 6 weeks old and then went on to SMA white formula for hungry babies , and then at about 6-8 months old went onto full fat milk . Both DS have skimmed milk now as I believe that the fat content is way over and above their dietary needs. I am a bit cynical and would suggest that follow on milk is just another way of keeping you in the clutches of the formula manufacturers, but hey ho both DS are fit well and healthy . On another point, I dont think you get Clubcard points or Advantage points for Formula milks , but I could be wrong . Good luck and hope this helps x

You can get points for follow-on milk but not first milk. This also the reason the companies can give away free samples in bounty bags etc and advertise in magazines.

My two boys had breast milk for the first year and then went onto follow-on milk. I did try the first straight onto cows milk but it didn't seem to agree with him so we tried formula and then gradually weaned him onto cows milk.

Every child is individual so it may take a while to find what suits yours.

HTH