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We do almond although when the girls were young toddlers and drinking a higher volume of milk, I would do hemp milk too.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: don't all of the flavors have the same fat content? I'm going to give Ripple a try for my LO; he's allergic to cow's milk and is slightly allergic to soy and almond too.

Hemp milk!

http://www.hellobee.com/2012/07/12/hemp-milk-the-best-alternative-to-cows-milk/

Is lactose-free cow’s milk an option? My DS had really bad diarrhea when we first tried to switch him to cow’s milk, so we switched to lactose free and that solved his issue. He drank that for about six months before we tried again with regular cow’s milk and he had no issue the second time.

One thing I would suggest is not to consider something like almond milk an "alternative" for cow's milk. Most nut milks do not have the same amount of fat and protein as cow's milk. So that just means that you would have to ensure she's getting the adequate amount from other foods. Add in more nut butters, avocado, etc. Basically, I wouldn't consider it as an alternative to milk so much as a beverage, and then she'd be getting the nutrients from food. Which is totally fine!

ETA: I have heard good things about Ripple milk, and it has more of those nutrients in it (though still not the same as WCM). But I have not tasted it myself.

My DD is 10 mo old, and I was just starting to wonder about this!

Sounds like i'll look into Ripple and hemp milk. I personally use soy milk or coconut milk, but only to add my coffee; I don't drink any milk or put any in cereal. DH has milk only to wet his cereal!

I don't have a definitive reason to not give DD milk, just that I am sensitive to all dairy products (undiagnosed IBS, I believe) and so is a lot of my family. And something about the amount of hormones weirds me out. Plus I think its really disgusting!

What are your reasons for not giving WCM? I need a simple explanation for my old fashioned family.

Both my boys had long, gradual transitions to WCM because of some digestive issues. My youngest has a more sensitive stomach and it was like a 2 month process starting at 13 months, but he was fully on cow's milk by 15 months. DS1 we tried at 11 months and when it was giving him trouble, we waited until 13 months and transitioned over 2 weeks. I don't know if its a lactose thing or what, but they had cow's milk based formula as supplementation and ate yogurt and cheese without issue, so I wasn't ready to try plant based milks yet.

@starlitsky: you're much better at web stuff. I tried to do that earlier myself.

Did you cut out all other cows milk dairy as well to identify that the milk was the cause? Perhaps too much acid in another food? (red sauce, tomatoes and oranges make my Los poo go crazy and she gets a rash)

@agold: My kids took to WCM fine, but within a week they started getting butt peeling runs. They weren't even fussy or having pain - it was just coming right out of them in blow outs.

@Adira: I was all about hemp milk but now comparing, I think this Pea Milk (ripple) may actually be better and less nutty tasting

When we met with our pediatric nutritionist (DS was in the single digit percentiles for weight and fell off at one point), she told us that if he had a diagnosed dairy allergy (oh yes indeed), the best option nutritionally was soy milk. She told us very clearly that if we decided to use other milks, he would not get the nutrients he needed that were traditionally supplied via cow's milk. Sooo we did soy milk haha!

With that context, I'm curious what the opposition to soy milk is from?

To be fair to our nutritionist, I think this was before Ripple was available and when I first saw it in stores it was far more expensive than soy milk, so we stuck with soy. I find it promising so many people love it, maybe DD will try it when she turns 1 if my budget doesn't cry too hard.

@codeitall: @agold: Soy has a lot of natural estrogen in it. It’s possoble the extra estrogen might increase cancer risks and bring on puberty earlier.