Goat's Milk?

[lagoon66]

DS is almost 9 months..I still BF him on-demand and he eats solids too. Just curious about goat's milk. If for some reason I ran out of frozen milk and had to leave the house for several hours while he was with Grandma, could he have GM? I know it's not recommended, but I also know people do it all the time. I feel like this is a better alternative than formula. Thoughts? Anyone do this with their LO?

[bug2003]

I wouldn't do it. I would do formula. Formulas have the proteins broken down. Goat's milk does not. While some babies are able to handle goat's milk over cow's milk, it still has full proteins. Formula also has more nutrients than just goat's milk does. Until your LO is a year, I would not introduce straight goat's milk or cow's milk.

[Laura Lou]

personally, i'd prefer fresh goat's milk over formula anyday. (not everyday, though. unless you want a goatbaby) If it's pasturized, it's definitely lower quality in my opinion. i'd still go for it over formula, if it's just an occasional thing, if you try it and your kid does okay with it. it would be more prone to be problematic than clean, raw, fresh milk.

i find formula very unappealing. and i don't trust it to have the vitamins to nourish a healthy baby.
taste the goat milk you're thinking of offering , though. i used to drink it as a kid and liked it, but bought some recently and i think it was not nearly as clean. i didn't drink it. it tasted like a dirty goat.

from what i've read, cow milk forms large curds in the stomach acid, and goat milk forms smaller ones. the smaller ones are easier to digest. i don't know what size our milk makes.

[JasmineMama]

I would do goat's milk if it were an occasional thing. Goat's milk has an enzyme that partially breaks down the proteins making it much easier for people to digest than cow's milk. But, it does have too much of another mineral/vitamin (I'm blanking on which one) so I wouldn't do TOO much for a baby under 1.

I feed my older DS only goat's milk -- he's almost 3. I started the goat's milk right around a year and he has done really well with it. The times he has had cow's milk have been nightmarish for us (but I knew that he would likely have issues with cow's milk and that is a whole different story).

[Coolbeans1971]

I have 7 kids and they all had fresh goats milk at the start of them being able to have milk in a sippy cup. Baby one, (our guinea pic) we followed docs advice and gave her cow milk at 9 mths and that got her terribly constipated (a friend had boy same age that had kidney stones by age 2 from cow milk). My husband bought some goats and that's the way we went. Baby 3 couldn't tolerate cow milk. She still hates it. We do almond milk when we can't milk our goats. Baby 7, we have tried small amounts of cow milk at a time and we end up with no rest that evening from his tummy pain. None of us has milk allergies, just doesn't agree with them. Now we have tried fresh cow milk, and they all can tolerate that. Once pasturized any milk has its enzymes broken down that help to digest it....

[epiclesis]

My 7 month old and 20 month old have had raw goat milk since they were 3 and 5 months. I do half raw goat milk and half formula in a day.


I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable with my baby having something new like that while his momma wasn't even home with him though. If you're going to do it, give it a try when you're around first, so it can be a reliable resource when you need it.

[cyanotype]

I was gone last week on a field trip all day and got some goat milk as back up. My little guy is 8.5 months and allergic to cows milk. I was more comfortable leaving this instead of formula.

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