It's 5:30am and I'm sipping a little coffee while trying to plan our day. I think its a coffee + park playdate kinda-day. I'm also taking advantage of the calm before the storm.. the Emi storm. A source of constant movement & excitement, that girl keeps me on my toes from the minute she wakes up, with her new favorite game being climb on the fireplace hearth and jump-off.  The best solution we've come up with is to make the dogbed her landing pad.

Over the past month or we've been working to transition Emi to regular milk and I felt as if we'd never done that before.. it's so strange how you forget things from one kid to the next. Transitioning to whole milk proved to be easier said than done with Emi since she had a tummy bug last month that seemed to make her more sensitive to everything for a few weeks afterward.

Transitioning to whole milk is a huge milestone. For the formula feeding mamas, no more spending time washing & mixing bottles! And for the nursing mamas, regular bras & no more dipping into a dressing room to feed your babe while shopping! ;) All of that is to be celebrated!

Cows milk has a different texture and taste of course than breastmilk or formula does, (Emi wasn't so sure at first) and can be a little more harsh on your babe's tiny tummy. We started with regular whole milk but found that lactose free milk was much a better option and as an added perk has less sugar than regular whole milk.

Today I'm sharing a few tips to make the transition easier for anyone with that phase coming up!

• Introduce whole milk at lunch or in the morning with breakfast rather than at bedtime. Little ones love that bedtime feeding for comfort more than anything, so introducing it during another feeding might go a little smoother..

• Try milk at room temp or slightly warmed up instead of cold from the refrigerator. Emi looked at me like I was trying to poison her the first time I gave her cold milk haha!

• Mix half whole milk + half breastmilk or formula to make the taste transition a little easier.

• Consider what they are drinking from - this is where you have to be careful, but you may be able to work on two birds with one stone here. If you’re newly transitioning to a bottle or sippy cup, this could be too much change at once. If they’re used to a bottle, maybe try sticking with it instead of incorporating a sippy cup transition.  But if you think they may be ready in the next few months to transition off of a bottle, try offering whole milk in a sippy cup only, and stick to breastmilk/formula only in bottles. This has seemed to work well for us. We are down to just a bottle at naptime and bedtime. These are our favorite sippy cups: with & without handles.
• With Aria, I do remember that she drank coconut milk for awhile as her tummy wasn't quite ready for cow's milk - which made for two transitions, but we just went slow. 

• And of course, if it doesn’t work, just keep trying. As with all things, right?!

Now if only we can figure out how to potty-train Aria. If you have any great advice or tips to share on the whole milk transition.. (or potty training for that matter) we would love for you to share in the comments to encourage other moms!!  xoxo