Can I give up breast milk before 6 months?
Not all mothers endure 6 months of breastfeeding, we will tell you how to make the change to preserve the best diet for your baby.
Without any doubt, breast milk is the most suitable food for babies during their first months of life . More and more mothers are abandoning breast milk to go to the bottle within a few months or even never get to breastfeed. According to the World Health Organization, the correct thing to do is to breastfeed your baby up to 6 months and then start combining them with other foods.
However, the reality is very different. As the Breastfeeding Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics shared in a report, more than half of women abandon breastfeeding before six months. At the beginning, 80% of mothers start breastfeeding, at six weeks the figure drops to 68% and at three months it stands at 52%. Finally only 36% breastfeed the baby during the first six months of the child.
As we have commented, the many properties of breast milk make it the best food for the baby. In the first place, because it does not have to go through intermediaries or modifications, it also provides the necessary defenses to prevent normal illnesses in children such as colds, pneumonia, diarrhea , or urine infections. Likewise, it prepares the organism of the little ones for when other foods are going to be incorporated into their diet.
Index
GIVING UP BREASTFEEDING EARLY IS NORMAL
There are different reasons why mothers stop breastfeeding their children . It may be due to some myths such as that the baby must get used to some food guidelines or that you have a small breast and you think that you will not have enough milk. Most of these reasons , as we say, are myths since the body of the woman and the baby is made so that it can breastfeed without any problem. However, breastfeeding can be annoying or uncomfortable, cause cracks in the chest, or other problems, so many mothers decide to quit, an option as valid as continuing.
The experts have spoken and explain that although it is not the most appropriate, you can stop breastfeeding the baby . You can even never give it to him. But if it does, you must take some precautions and you cannot make mistakes in feeding your baby such as giving cow’s milk. Cow’s milk should not be given in any case before the first year. That is why we explain what your child should drink if you stop breastfeeding and want to give him a bottle.
In the first six months, the milk that you should give her if you stop breastfeeding is called the starting milk . There are different brands, so we recommend that you talk to your pediatrician to see which is the most appropriate and that you do not buy the one that seems best to you. If you want to give up breastfeeding, you can also try expressing your own milk during the first months, that is, the first six months, and give it in a bottle. This way you will give him the milk he needs and it will be easier for you.
THE MILK CHANGE
Once six months are over, it is best to move on to follow-up milk. This differs even more between brands. The starter milk is practically the same between brands but the continuation milk varies a lot in its content as the number of nutrients. This type of milk is taken up to 12 months. In addition, after six months there are other foods that you should gradually incorporate into your child’s diet.
Finally, from 12 to 36 months, growth milk is recommended . Provides essential minerals, vitamins and fats. This is also combined with other foods since it is just one more necessary food in your diet. Calcium, as we well know, is absolutely necessary for the correct growth of the baby . In addition, milk has many more properties than calcium that are also very necessary. For this reason, we cannot be satisfied with a correct feeding of the baby, forgetting something as important as milk.
Lately there is much talk that milk is harmful to health and that we should not give it to our children. It is another of the milk myths that have not yet been proven. If you wish, you can not give your child cow’s milk because of this but do not forget that there are other types of milk , as we have explained, that they are totally necessary and that only provide benefits for the health of your child.
For this reason, there is no problem if you give up breast milk before the first six months and go to the bottle, but if you do, you must perfectly control your child’s feeding.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.