How Can We Transition Away from Enfamil Gentle Ease Formula?

Updated on March 24, 2010
A.L. asks from Highland Park, IL
8 answers

My baby is 14 months old. She's been on Gentle Ease and Gas-x drops since she was 3 weeks old. We tried transitioning her to milk around her first birthday, but she didn't digest it well. We're back on the Gentle Ease, and stayed there due to a vacation and now a combination of teething and colds.

Tried giving her Silk milk last week - it was a vanilla flavor. She didn't seem to care for it - but I only tried that once.

I'd love to get her off of formula. Anyone else have this challenge - and what did you transition to?

She eats fine, was 25 pounds around her first birthday, so there's no issue about needing her to bulk up. She is not too picky of an eater - there are only a few things she doesn't care for. Just want to get her something she can digest well.

Thanks Mamaas.

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K.L.

answers from Washington DC on

As L. as she's getting calcium from other sources (cheese, yogurt, etc) she doesn't need to drink milk.

1 mom found this helpful
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S.S.

answers from St. Louis on

My son was on Genlte Ease and we transitioned to the Next Step Soy formula with out too much difficulty. After a couple monthes of soy toddler formula we moved to skim milk and our son is doing fine with it. He does get some 2%milk if we are visiting family or skim isn't available, but too much of that and he has loose stools. I guess he's just has a little problem with lactose.

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C.B.

answers from Detroit on

You don't say whether you are still using bottles, but one thing I did when I started my kids on regular milk for one and soy milk for the other was to only give it to them in sippy cups. I had been given some advice from someone else that this helps them to associate that a new taste will be coming from a new type of cup. It could be that she is expecting the same old formula in her bottle if that is what you are using and getting the milk instead. It went perfectly with one of my son's. The other, it took a couple weeks where he didn't drink much milk, but I did not offer the bottle and made sure he got his nutrients from somewhere else (cheese, etc) and it was no time before he was back to drinking milk like a champ. I feel like I was able to conquer two things in one (switch off formula and bottle at same time) pretty easily in my case anyway.

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N.R.

answers from Lakeland on

When I stopped nursing my daughter around 15 months or so - she stopped sleeping through the night, had terrible gas, and the worst diaper rash EVER! My husband is the one that put it together - as he is lactose intolerant. I tried her on Lactaid milk and Viola! Just like that the problems all stopped immediately.
Is it possible that your daughter is lactose intolerant? I wouldn't give her soy milk - we did for awhile. I noticed that she was very very moody, and my sweet little 4 year old started getting really really dark hair on her legs and arms. I read alot about soy - and cut it out all together. The mood swings stopped, and the hair all fell out! Read up about it - among other things it promotes early puberty! Hey they grow up fast enough.
Now - back to the lactaid milk. Ice cream, cheese, pizza etc were all off limits because she would naturally react the same way. I discovered though - that if she had at least 1/2 of a sippy cup of lactaid milk - that she could immediately eat any of those things without a problem as the milk had the enzyme that she lacked to be able to tolerate them. On another front - we travel alot - and carrying lactaid milk was a pain in the neck. We don't allow her to have soda, and you can't get lactaid in individual size cartons or at convenience stores or restaurants. Finally I discovered a new product, my husband takes the adult version and swears by it. There are tables called "Digestive Advantage - lactose intolerance". The adult ones are tiny little capsules, she has actually at 5 learned to swallow them in cases when I couldn't get my hands on the children's chewable. Walmart used to carry them, but they don't have the kids formulation any more, so Publix orders it for me and keeps 1/2 dozen boxes at the customer service counter at any given time. If you go to their website - you can print coupons - they range from $1 - $3 each time, and a box is a month's supply. I highly recommend these pills over the lactaid brand - as the lactaid brand has to be taken (1-3 pills) EACH time that you have dairy if it has been more than 30 minutes. These digestive advantage chew-ables are 1 every 24 hours. It's alot easier to keep a card of these in my purse and grab milk anywhere than it is to find lactaid milk when traveling or eating out etc.. Good luck, hope this helps!

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H.F.

answers from Chicago on

My daughters have been on Similac Sensitive since they were about four months old. They just turned a year, and I too have been struggling about how to introduce milk into their diet. After talking to their pediatrician, and other moms, this is what I am going to try. I haven't done it yet, so I am hoping it will work. I am going to for about a week, transition them to regular formula doing half sensitive, and half reg. formula. I will do that for a week or so to see how they tolerate it and then eventually increase the reg. formula until that is all they are taking. If that works, then I will keep them on the reg. formula for a couple of weeks and then introduce the milk the same way that I introduced the regular formula.
Like I said, I haven't tried this yet, but hoping that it will work for us.

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G.P.

answers from Chicago on

My son (32 months now) spit up terrible. We went through 10 changes of clothes per day with him and anyone who was holding him! I tried every kind of formula there was. The Dr. put him on an anacid, which I tried for one week, but did not work. We then took him to a specialist, who told us he should out grow it by 1 year. He did! Anyway, when I switched him to cow's milk, ofcourse I tried whole milk, but it did not agree with him. So, I switched to 2%, which was a lot better, then ended up buying 1% and that's what he has been on ever since. Good luck!

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M.N.

answers from Denver on

My daughter has food allergies and we had the issue of milk until she was 18 months old. you could try using dry milk instead of formula or do a mixture to ween her off. The soy silk vanilla is pretty sweet (which my daughter loves, the sweeter things are the more she wants). the other thing we had to try was the rice dream and we started mixing it a little bit with 2% milk. I hope this helps and good luck.

C.R.

answers from Dallas on

It's a myth that children need to have milk or something like milk like soy milk, almond milk. It's really not necessary as long as they get a good multivitamin and a good rounded diet. I have a son that cannot drink milk or ice cream and is now five years old. Do some research on the subject and see what you think. If your still uncomfortable about it, get some of those yummy calcium chews to give her daily. ")
Best Regards,
C.

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