"Beth Kevles" wrote in message
...

Whether cow's milk or formula is "better" depends upon how old the baby
is and whether the baby is otherwise eating a varied diet. An infant,
for example, who eats no solids is MUCH better off eating formula than
cow's milk. A 12-month old who eats fruits but not other solids would
do better on formula than cow's milk. A 12-month old who eats a bit of
everything is probably fine on cow's milk rather than formula. And a
10-year old who eats a varied diet shouldn't need formula at all!

Formula is a "whole food". It provides all the nutrition (different
vitamins, proteins, etc.) that a baby needs. Cow's milk is not a whole
food (unless you're a calf). It provides some of the nutrition that
humans needs, but certainly not all, not even if you're a human infant.
(And it's not a *necessary* part of anyone's diet, although it's
certainly a convenient source of certain nutritional elements.)

EXACTLY!

Sounds like William has a reasonably varied diet, but it would certainly do
him no harm to continue with formula for a while.

If it was from the point of view of teeth you were concerned about, then
I've been trying to find the answer to that one myself. We've ummed and
arrrred about giving our 3yr old some formula as he's not doing that great
and our main worry was teeth but we could not find a sensible answer. I
think at this stage the bottles are more risk to teeth than which milk
choice you make. It doesn't sound like you are, but just about the worst
thing you can do for teeth is put juice in a bottle.

Anne