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01 February 2011
parents: at what age did you stop giving your kid milk before bedtime?
Ha. My kid is 4 1/2 and he still gets milk at bedtime. He's so skinny that I want him to have the calories especially overnight. Plus he wants it and it's part of our routine. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer .. like most things, it depends on the kid. How old is your little girl now? She is probably getting ready for college practically.
Never gave kid cow's milk until she started eating cereal. Never at bedtime. . but then she nursed until she was 4 (it really tailed off at the end but both of them were into it) so maybe not much need.
Yeah, I'm not really stressed about it or anything... it just occurred to me that I had no idea when anyone else gave up on it. Mads is nearly 2.5, and also super skinny so she needs the calories too :) She also likes it, so that's the main thing.
We never really gave our kids milk until they stopped breast feeding. After that, they have it if and when they want it. The girls hardly ever drink milk, our son wants it all day.
I nursed my older daughter at bedtime till she was a little over two and a half, when we weaned. Now (at 3yrs, 3 months) she gets cow milk at dinner, but dinner and bedtime are separated by toothbrushing and reading. So I don't know if that counts.
She's never been a huge cow milk drinker, though I wish she were, since she is a tiny one as well. She is, like, 3rd percentile maybe? We still have her on whole milk for the extra fat/calories.
I am a bad parent because: I don't remember. To be fair, it was a long time ago--he just got accepted to attend Vassar. I do remember an issue with being told that sleeping with a pacifier would ruin his teeth and I can't remember how that was resolved either except to guess based on our preference for pleasure over vague health worries.
I don't think I ever gave mine milk before bedtime. Maybe my daughter; my mother was all about the milk & I was more impressionable then. With my son I had gone more hippie and was all, no, cows milk is bad for kids. Which I frankly still kind of think it is, YMMV. Anecdotally, my daughter had lots of milk and lots of ear infections / sinus issues. My son rarely if ever drank milk and had maybe 1 ear infection through his years in preschool. I weaned mine to a bottle at about 15 months though - bad mommy! Kill, kill! - and I used to give them a bottle of water instead of milk or juice at night because I worried about their teeth. That went on until they were around 4. Their teeth are totally fine, by the way.