As your baby eats more food, the amount of milk they drink will gradually reduce. Generally, babies at 6 months will be drinking about 500-600ml milk (breastmilk or formula) per day, and this will decrease to about 350ml per day by their first birthday.
Milk is a great source of energy and many nutrients, including calcium, which form part of a healthy, balanced diet. Calcium is vital for building and maintaining strong bones and teeth, keeping our muscles and nerves working properly, and ensures our blood clots normally.
That’s why it’s important to make sure that we are all getting enough calcium throughout our lives. So how much calcium should your baby be having? The recommended intake for infants under 1 year of age is 525mg/day, and this reduces to 350mg/day for children aged 1-3years.
Milk is not the only source of calcium though – there are many other dietary sources which you can include in your little one’s diet to help ensure they’re getting enough. Cheese, yogurt, milk puddings and sauces, broccoli, spring greens, oranges, fortified cereals, bread and fish (with soft bones that you can mash and eat, e.g. tinned sardines, pilchards, salmon) are all valuable sources of calcium. For a very useful list of the calcium content of a variety of foods, have a look at the following link to the British Dietetic Association food fact sheet