I'm increasingly anxious about those babies who nurse fine and grow fine
and start solids fine, whose mothers begin tapering off nursing so that at
9 or 10 months they're nursing 2 or 3 times a day, to be virtually weaned
by a year.

Because these moms are sold on bfing, they don't even consider formula.
Yet their babies are getting very little breastmilk in the last quarter of
their first year and nothing but cow milk - and perhaps only as a beverage
to accompany solids - after that.

If we're meant to be nursing at least 3 times as long as the one-year mark,
aren't these children being seriously deprived of "child milk"?
(breastmilk or modified cow milk)

I'm pondering suggesting that mothers either continue nursing at least X
times per day thru the first year, not tapering to 0 before age 2 or 2 1/2,
or make up those nursings with formula, to ensure that their babies get
plenty of baby milk until they're really ready for a complete diet of
solids.

Could this be part of where our extraordinary rates of osteoporosis come
from?  What do you nutritionists recommend for milk intake after 6 months?
Do you feel unmodified cow milk can really do the job starting at a year?

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY