Commercial Baby Food and follow-on milk

Quite agree Eloethan. I never bought baby food and neither do our next generation parents. Mind, I do remember the HV complaining that DS at seven months old, smelt of garlic. Our children pretty much ate what we ate, suitably squashed up as appropriate. I think it's so sad that many young parents are subjected to, and persuaded by, these powerful advertisements.

I made my baby food although the odd jar was useful if we went out.

This new fad for follow on milk is a product of clever marketing which plays on the parent's wish to do what's best for their child. I bottle fed but switched to cows milk as soon as was allowed and it had no detrimental affects on my children but I couldn't persuade them to do the same with my grandchildren. Both fell foul of the advertising.

vampirequeen If it's not cows' milk, what sort of milk is follow-on milk?

Dried cows milk in a fancy packet with a fancy price?
Once a baby is a weaned at 6 months or so old it is fine to give it ordinary pasteurised (but not skimmed) either in a bottle or a sucky cup and it certainly does not need warming!
In the 20s and 30s there were all kinds of baby foods and weaning foods being pushed heavily, some of them quite alarming (I have a book somewhere) so nothing changes really does it.

As JessM says it's just cows milk by another name in a fancy packet with added vitamins. These vitamins are available and absorbed by the baby through the other foods he/she eats. They push vitamin D but that's available for free everytime the baby goes outside.

Basically it's a sales gimmick to keep parents buying their products for longer. They can have customers up to six months, a year or if they really plug their packet milk well they can have them for 2+ years. All those extra sales and millions of pounds profit.

I think they also add iron because there are some concerns about iron deficiency in babies of 6 months and up who may not be getting enough iron until their diet is sufficiently varied. That's only what I've read, I've had no direct experience of them. None of my children liked cow's milk anyway, nor does DGS.

The baby milk and disposal nappy manufactures do what ever they can can to keep selling their products long after they are relevant. All this soft focus television advertising of a brand of follow on milk is necessary. As are the pull up nappies that are promoted for toddlers. My HV was very scathing about these.
In my experience DD only really got the idea of needing a wee when she felt the wee running down her leg.
I had looked at the potty training in a day book and applied the advice when she was old enough. She got the message by tea time. Yes a very few puddles afterwards but it worked. If you keep on with what feels like a nappy they will probably just pee in them because that is whey they are used to doing.

Pull up pants are useful if out and about when a child is not quite reliably and in places where a puddle would cause a nuisance.
Like me being told by the librarian that my (only recently dry) DD was standing in a huge puddle in the middle of the library!

Plugging their vitamin content may be a bad thing. The department of health recommend vitamin supplements at this age. If mums see this guff about vitamins and minerals on milk packets they may thing the supplements are not needed. They won't get much vitamin d outside unless it is sunny, they are naked or semi-naked and they have no sunscreen on them.
It is very expensive, isn't it, compared to the cost of ordinary dried skimmed milk.

I used Hipp no.2 milk in a cup for DD3 once she weaned herself off the breast at just under a year old. I had found that cow's milk, which I had been putting into some of her home-made foods, was giving her eczema. So we cut out cow's milk and yogurt for a while. She was fine with cheese. She carried on drinking Hipp2 until she was five and a half, then one day she stopped drinking it, just as one day she had decided she didn't want to be breast fed any more.

DD2 was the same re the eczema and milk but not cheese.

We reckoned it was probably the cheese-making process that changed the proteins a bit (casein in particular) and made them digestible to them. I presume there is a similar difference in some powdered baby milks. They are not just dried cow's milk. There's a bit more processing than that, and added vitamins and minerals. So I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

DD1 also weaned herself off the breast at just under a year old and drank cow's milk with no problems.

It tastesbetter than ordinary dried milk too. Ordinary dried milk is disgusting.

Bet no-one on here drinks it.

Plus, isn't most dried milk skimmed? Useless stuff.

PS re warming it up, she liked it at 37°. Funny that

Yes of course it is skimmed. But dried cows milk is the raw ingredient of all these formulas except the soy kind I believe.
When cheese is made the lactose changes into lactic acid so sometimes those who are lactose intolerant may be able to tolerate cheese.