Since weaning| my 20 month old will not drink cow's milk. I've tried everything| from heating it| letting her have it cold from the fridge and even room temperature.
We've tried different cups and even formula too. I can't get her to drink more than an ounce at a time most days. We've even tried adding strawberry flavouring and calling it "princess juice"! Should we try chocolate? I worry about the caffeine.
She eats lots of cheese and yogurt and she'll eat cold cereal sometimes with milk| but won't drink a glass. We also give her apple juice with calcium in the morning. Is this ok? My doc says she should be drinking between 16 and 20 oz of milk a day! Help!!
Dear Kyla|
Baaaah| shes fine. Many of the nutritional studies show that we get whey (get it?) too much calcium in North America and our reliance on cows milk to get it has its downside. Calcium comes from many sources&green veggies such as broccoli| almonds| tofu| cheese| yogurt| fortified juices. Assuming that she is getting 2-3 servings of these sources per day she is just fine without the good ol glass of milk.
In fact| I often have to convince parents to lay off the milk! Too much of it can fill the tiny tummy ensuring that they arent hungry enough to get the rest of the nutrients from other foods. Do not go the chocolate route! And| give up the Princess Juice; you are only encouraging a sweet tooth un-necessarily. My own mother did this when I shunned dairy and it turned out that we were forcing milk into a body that couldnt digest it. Hmm| your princess may just have the instinct that I did. Milk doesnt agree with her. (BTW| yogurt and cheese have less lactose and wont have the same effect)
The key difference here is that milk drinkers get Vitamin D from milk (fortified here in Canada) but not from these other sources. Id say your town gets about as much sunshine as any other part of this vast land in the winter and it isnt enough. Be sure to let her skin absorb some morning or late afternoon sun during the spring/summer/fall and supplement with Vitamin D drops from November to April.
Hey| say hi to our best man and his wife| Jimmy and Andrea who live in Fredericton for me| would ya?
Good luck! 
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