Toddler Stopped Drinking Milk

I wouldn't worry about it. Give her greens, veggies, fruits, and lean meats and she will be getting everything she needs from foods, the way her body was meant to get them. If she's stopped, its for a reason, she probably doesn't like the way it makes her body feel.

I used a little psychological mumbo-jumbo on my son by calling it something else: "moo."
It worked.
Buy something ever-so-slightly different and in a different looking carton--2%, whole, skim, organic whatever--and call it by a different name. Worth a try!

My kids drink too much milk......sounds crazy, right? Our daughter was probably up to over 48 oz of whole milk daily until we put a halt to it at 23 months.

I hate to openly disagree with another mom here, but I'd NOT recommend adding flavoring to it. The syrups/powders are full of sugar (watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC - http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution)

If she refuses to drink milk, ask the pediatrician how to best supplement her diet with the nutrients milk is so important for providing. At 2 1/2 years, she should be on a low-fat milk, so that's not as critical, but the vitamin D/calcium are pretty easy to incorporate with other foods. Here's what the American Academy of Pediatrics says:
http://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nut...

I personally hate milk. My parents made me drink it as a kid at dinner. No options. As ad adult, I cringe at the thought of drinking a glass of milk. But, as a kid, it wasn't my choice to make, and I learned to deal with it even if I didn't like it.

Try adding chocolate or strawberry syrup to the milk. Also, alternatives like yogurts, cheese sticks or grilled cheese, smoothies (dyno ones), they sell it in the store near the yogurt. I use these types of things for my baby girl and she loves it all. Oh and I try and use milk in her oatmeal each morning on the weekends. Make sure to give a vitamin daily and he'll be fine!

Any health professional will tell you, cow's milk is bad for us any way, especially if that is your main source of calcium and vitamin D. In addition to other foods, try other types of milk. I buy almond milk they have flavors, but the best is plain, no sugar added. (In Kroger you'll find it in the health food section.)Then I put Ovaltine in it. My kids and I love it. We use it for cerial too. Try it at least once. My pediatrician said, "As long as it has calcium and vitamin D in it, I don't care".

Perhaps she doesn't like it because she's lactose intolerant. I've heard of kids who start hating milk between 3 and 6 or 7 and it's because their bodies can't process it. Worth checking into.
I think she'd be able to get sufficient protien, fat, and calcium (the main components of milk) from other foods. Calcium will be the trickier one to be sure of.

I wouldn't flavor it, that's just a tricky road to go down (sugar, additives, blech). Just give a break from the milk, and make sure you offer dairy in other forms (yogurt, cheese, etc). Remember that calcium also comes from dark green vegetables (even broccoli). Give a short break, and then keep offering it as an option. Don't give up on the plain milk. If we gave up on everything our kids stopped liking, they'd be eating nothing but junk and fillers. Sometimes my son is in the mood for a food, sometimes he's not, but I keep offering (and therefore, he ends up eating it again!).

Milk is the most common allergen. If your child is getting other healthy foods I wouldn't worry about him/her consuming milk.

Many other juices have calcium and vitamin D added. This is one of those choice things that depending on how you handle it will lead to a healthy look on food or if the child is forced will lead to obesity and eating disorders.

The "eat what I say" mentality hasn't done America any good. Kids are fat because they've been told to eat, eat, eat. Let your child have a choice between juice with vitamin's added or milk.

You could try adding vanilla or chocolate powder. If your child is still eating cheese and yogurt I would not worry much, they can get what they need form the other forms of dairy.

Put Chocolate or Strawberry flavoring in it.

Offer V8Fusion instead (juice but has full serving of juice and veggies).

Don't push the issue - if they are getting a rise out of you, then that might be what your daughter/son wants.

I was never a milk lover.
I had family with dairy farms and I loved the cows, but I dang sure wasn't about to drink anything that came out of them.
Giving me a glass of milk was torture.
However, I loved cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt.
And, you might not believe this, but I loved (and still do), buttermilk.
Don't ask me why.....I'd drink buttermilk all day and all night, but a regular glass of milk...no way.
Just be sure you child gets plenty of other dairy, you might even try buttermilk. You never know. It has more calcium than regular milk. That's what my doctor told me and I drink it for my bones.
As far as adding a little chocolate, there was a campaign to keep chocolate milk served at school because studies showed that children were more likely to drink it. And the low amounts of sugar added to the lowfat milk were less harmful to the child than avoiding the milk all together.
You can google it.
It's not a habit you want to start at your child's age. Try putting ice in the milk. I know many a child who wouldn't drink it unless it was ice cold.
Offer other dairy and realize it just might be a phase for now.

Best wishes!

Try doing chocolate or strawberry milk for a while. If you buy the syrup, you control how much you put in their milk. Also, my son really loved the danimals yogurt drinks when he wil little. I'd buy the cheap yogurt and mix a little in his milk instead of buying the name brand ones and that worked. You have to get yogurt that doesn't have chunks of fruit in it, that's why I said the cheap brand!

Why, they don't need it. They can get calcium and protein from other sources. Yogurt, steamed brocolli, low fat ice cream, smoothies with frozen fruit and milk or yogurt base,cheese, etc.
Do not resort to adding chocolate and strawberry flavoring and the extra sugar and it is a minipulative move you may regret later with cavaties and other ideas.

Really no need to drink milk at all if they get a balanced diet otherwise, there are plenty of other sources of calcium and proteins, and in TX vitamin D should not be in short supply.

My daughter doesn't drink straight milk. Rarely has. I've made her a yogurt smoothie since she was 18 months. (Basically diluted yogurt: 3 yogurt cartons, 1/2 cup of milk--enough to make it liquidy, put thru a strainer to get the seeds and fruit chunks out. It helps if you have two big measuring cups to use, one to mix it up in, and one to pour into through the strainer. I now make smoothies for 2 days at a time: 5 cartons of yogurt and 3/4 cup to 1 cup of milk; it makes 4 cups according to my 4-cup pyrex glass measuring bowl; I pour 8 oz into four sippy cups.)

The recommended milk intake guidelines for over 12 months of age is no more than 16 oz of milk a day. She drinks two 8 oz cups a day (drinks it through a straw; likes to pick the straw color which makes it fun for her); one 8 oz cup in the morning with her cartoon (until age 4, this was her primary breakfast; she now asks for cereal also), the other 8 oz smoothie in the late afternoon (when we get home from daycare, sometimes another one if she's hungry before bed).

There are 5 oz of protein in each carton of yogurt... So, with 3 cartons she's getting at least 7.5 oz of milk-based protein each day, plus fiber and probiotics for her immunity. I think the smoothies are a main reason why she's never had constipation issues and is rarely ill with daycare viruses.

The homemade smoothies have an equal amount of protein as pediasure (pediasure has 7 oz), but no soy protein and no high fructose corn syrup (I personally choose to buy yogurt made with sugar instead of corn syrup).

Yes, there is sugar in yogurt but I don't add any additional sugar, honey, jam or flavorings to her yogurt smoothies; it was an intentional decision to gear her to like "normal food". On the few times she's said that she wasn't going to drink the smoothie, we turned the TV off... "Gotta drink the smoothie if you want the cartoon"... And that smoothie was gone.

For the rest of her meals, *she* prefers and requests water. (Juice was never a regular choice and she never became a big fan of it.)

I'm not a proponent of sweetening food in order to get a kid to eat it. There are other ways, you just have to approach it differently. My kid wouldn't drink milk, then I needed to try another form of dairy based protein--yogurt. Chocolate, strawberry and other sugar-based flavors added to milk (and which offer no other nutritional value) never entered my list of alternatives for my then 18 month old.

Good luck! (By the way, my daughter is allergic to cow's milk so her smoothies are made with goat milk and goat milk yogurt.)

J.,
This may seem off the wall but it's worth considering. Human's are the only mammals on the planet that continue to drink milk after the normal "weaning" span that most mammals experience. According to Biology studies (I am a science teacher), mammalian babies have a gene that allows the metabolism of milk from birth to about normal weaning time for most animal momma's, (for humans, it's about two years,) and then that gene typically switches off, just as it does in the rest of the animal kingdom. After that, it is much more difficult for us to process milk (which gives rise to the large number of humans who experience lactose intolerance and serious allergies to milk products.)
Maybe your kid is on to something. Maybe it no longer agrees with him, or tastes good, and perhaps other options should be explored. Goat's milk is easier for humans to digest, but there are also vegan and vegetarian forms that can be made in the home, such as almond or cashew milk, etc. There's also the prospect that he could enjoy and tolerate raw milk, if you could locate a source. People who drink/use unpasteurized milk from certified-healthy organic herds don't have the allergies that conventional cow's milk drinkers do. Just a thought...

so my little one just turned 2 year 4 mos. she used to LOVE LOVE LOVE milk even drinking 48 oz a day. then one day to the next she stopped.
now no matter what i do she won't drink milk....

our youngest did that. She had some chocolate milk and then would not drink regular milk. so... we mixed the milks together and called it "marble" milk and slowly weaned her back over to regular milk. She still likes her marble milk every now and then.

My daughter was the same way. She's 5 now and still doesn't drink milk. We've even tried strawberry and chocolate milk which she didn't go for either. What we have been doing is using it in her food when we can like mac n cheese, oatmeal, etc. We also let her have as much cheese as she wants, pretty much. Luckily, she likes yogurt and cottage cheese so with all of those substitutes, we feel she is getting enough of the milk type products. We also give her a gummy vitamin D supplement to make sure she's getting what she needs of that too.
Good luck with it. It could just be a phase or it may be a true preference.

Talk to your pediatrician. They will give you the BEST advice and ease your mind. Even if that advice is the evil, dreaded, horrible chocolate/strawberry flavoring!!!! Sorry.........just couldn't resist! =0) I'm a healthy, fit 30 year old woman who adores my chocolate milk. My two healthy wonderful children love their chocolate milk. Do they drink it 24/7, 365 days a year. No. It's all in moderation. And guess what......we all eat our vegetables and healthy choices!! None of us are morbidly obese and feast on nothing but sugar and junk and processed foods! Isn't that just CRAZY??!?! Imagine that. =0) Some of my fondest childhood memories involve chocolate milk. Heaven forbid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My parents raised 3 kids, are about to celebrate their 43rd wedding anniversary and are both in good health and physically fit. Somehow, we all drank chocolate milk and ate our occasional McDonalds Happy Meals and we're all doin pretty darn good. Good grief people.