My husband is adamant about not letting our daughter eat dairy. He has cited many studies showing the negative effects of dairy on the body, including being linked to allergies, and even cancer. He can get quite firm when it comes to dietary concerns for the household, while I’m more of a everything-in-moderation type of person. This means he doesn’t want our daughter drinking whole milk as pediatricians recommend for those transitioning from breast milk or formula.

I certainly have nothing against milk or dairy in general. Whole milk is the perfect next phase liquid for babies. They get the fat they need for their growing brain, plus calcium and other important vitamins. However, I want to respect my husband’s demand request so I started researching good alternatives for whole cow’s milk. Unfortunately, there isn’t really much out there. The top alternatives seem to be rice milk, soy milk, goat’s milk, none of which have the good high-fat content that is so beneficial for a growing baby and child.

I started to think that we’d have to go with whole cow’s milk after all. Then I started thinking: there’s got to be millions of kids out there whose parents are vegetarians and don’t give their kids milk. What do they do? I then realized that while whole cow’s milk is a convenient way to package the nutrients you should serve to your child, you can get all these nutrients from different foods. For example, we can take soy milk (which we already drink; we don’t consume cow’s milk) and feed her that while supplementing the fat that’s missing from other foods.

Avocados with it’s superior fat content is a good supplement to add to her diet. I can also give her bread drizzled with olive oil. I can put some sunflower seeds and other nuts through the food processor mix with sugar, a bit of oil or maybe soy milk and turn that into a paste for breads, or keep it dry an sprinkle it on cereals or just feed it to her as it is.

I think we’ve got a good game plan. For parents who are concerned only with what cows are fed (feeds with preservatives, etc.) and how that affecs the milk, you can also try USDA-approved Organic milk.

Wish us luck!

Monsanto are a happy company in the USA. They sell genetically modified seeds for crops grown in the US (banned in most other western countries) and are allowed to sell Bovine Growth Hormone, rBGH, for use in dairy cows (banned in most other western countries).

Cows injected with rBGH produce 10-25% more milk, making farmers very happy, considering the recent high prices they can sell milk for. The cows, however, are less happy. rBGH makes cows more likely to have foot problems and lameness, fertility problems, reactions at the injections site, and more likely to get mastitis. (Nursing moms, did you ever get mastitis? it’s AGONY.)

And what about consumers? By-products of rBGH do pass into milk. Heath Canada studies have concluded that rBGH cannot “biologically plausibly” affect humans, and Monsanto claims that pasteurization render it harmless to humans, but feeding growth hormones to adult animals has been shown to increase the risk of some cancers in animal studies. The drug is banned for use in Canadian cattle on animal welfare grounds.

Currently, milk from cows not injected with rBGH is labeled as such, so consumers can make a choice. Monsanto is hoping to change that though. A supposedly independent group of farmers called Afact is lobbying for changes in the law which will prevent labeling of rBGH-free milk as such. Turns out that Afact was organized by Monsanto. So far they haven’t succeeded. And in Pennsylvania, lawmakers actually tightened the regulations on milk labeling to make it more accurate as to whether hormones had been used.

rBGH-free milk is sold everywhere from Walmart to health food stores, so it’s available for almost every consumer for about the same price as rBGH milk. I’ve just been to SuperTarget: A half-gallon of Target brand milk (may contain rBGH) is $2.19, Kemp’s brand milk (no rBGH) is $2.39.

It’s an easy decision for me to choose which one to buy for my family, especially considering how much milk my toddler drinks.

And what about baby formula? The main ingredient of formula is milk. Enfamil, Good Start and Similac’s websites are devoid of any information about rBGH.

A Similac customer representative read me a statement that said Similac “have no control” over whether the milk they use in their formula has rBGH in it. She also told me “there are no traces of rBGH in formula” because it is inactivated in the formula making process. She also said “rBGH is turned into inactive fragments in the digestive tract”.

Enfamil and Nestle Good Start emailed me lengthy statements saying much the same thing – cows are injected with rBGH, we might be using some of their milk, but no rBGH ends up in our formula.

No studies have shown any risk to humans from drinking rBGH milk. Although, to be fair, not many studies have been done, and none on a large scale, so it’s probably not wise to claim it’s totally safe just yet.There’s other food issues that are proven to be harmful – like trans fats, or mercury in fish, pesticides in fruit and vegetables, and lead in our water, that’s it’s much more important to be aware of. But since I can avoid rBGH milk cheaply and easily, for my family’s sake and for the welfare of dairy cows, I’m certainly going to.

Every mom experiences this to some degree. Whether weaning from breast or formula to cow’s milk, babies and toddlers are notoriously awkward about drinking enough milk.

Pediatricians usually recommend around 16oz of cow’s milk a day for a one-year-old. My one-year-old was totally typical of weaning babies and thought he should drink one sip, then nurse 14 times a day. I despaired of ever getting him to drink enough milk to wean him without worrying that he would get enough nutrients. Other moms of one-year-olds have the same struggle weaning from formula.

Here’s some tips and tricks to encourage your baby to drink more milk.

• Mix pumped breastmilk or formula with the cow’s milk to get them used to the taste gradually.
• Try different cups – different styles of sippy cups, spouts, straws, valves or no valves, or even cups with no lids – most babies can drink from a cup with a little help. Let your baby pick out a cup. Yes, your son will probably want Dora The Explorer. Better Dora than no milk!
• Pretend it’s your milk. Pour a cup. Drink. Baby will want some. No, this is mine. Are you sure you want some? Well, ok, I guess you can have some.
• Flavor the milk. Babies often like vanilla, from a tiny drop of vanilla flavoring. Chocolate is another fave, a tip-of-a-teaspoon of Nesquik makes milk very chocolaty for a baby so you don’t need to worry too much about the sugar.
• Color the milk. My son used to insist blue milk tasted better than white milk. Whatever, dude, as long as you are drinking it, it’s all good. Use a tiny amount of food dye, or health food stores sell vegetable-based food dyes.
• Have something dry to eat, like crackers, or toast. Then offer milk. Thirsty babies usually drink.
• Milk on cereal counts, as does milk in sauces. Mac and cheese, and many pasta sauces have milk in them.
• Cheese counts too. And yogurt, and yogurt or milk in smoothies.
• Some babies like soy milk, especially the flavored kinds. Pediatricians don’t usually recommend soy milk unless baby is lactose-intolerant but a cup of soy milk does have protein, calcium and vitamins. Mixing soy and cow’s milk together tastes like soy milk, and has the goodness of cow’s milk.
• Temperature. Try cold, room temperature, warm. A friend’s baby only drank milk with ice chips. (Be careful with ice cubes, they could be a choking hazard.)
• Froth it up. A $2 cappuccino milk frother + warm milk = milk froth baby can eat with a spoon. Big hit with babies learning to use a spoon.

Mix it up. If one trick stops working, try another, and another, and another.

If you are worried baby will want to drink blue milk (or chocolate milk or whatever) forever, gradually reduce the amount of food coloring (or Nesquik ect.) until she’s drinking plain milk. And most importantly, don’t pressure your baby or insist they drink their milk. If anything, it will make them less likely to want to drink it, and give them a negative association with the new milk.

And good luck, Mama! It will seem like the battle of the century but one day your baby will be drinking milk like a champ. Promise!

What tips and tricks have you used? Share your secrets!