I used to trick a toddler I babysat into drinking Milk by mixing it in with his juice, since he was a juice addict. Of course, I couldn't put TOO much milk in or it would be too obvious, but he didn't catch on if I did like a 1/3 to 2/3 milk to juice ratio, especially if it was in a dark sippy cup.

When my son turned one and we took him off formula and switched him to milk, he looked at us like we were crazy!!  Haha!  I tried everything.  Warming it up or adding chocolate or strawberry syrup.  We tried soy milk.  He didn't want any of it.

So I talked to my pedi about it and he said to just give up.  My son gets a serving of cheese per day and a serving of yogurt, both of which he loves.  We also give him juice fortified with calcium and we add a dose of liquid vitamins to his juice that he drinks with his breakfast in the morning.

I don't think milk is super important like some pedis make it out to be.  I myself am not a milk drinker, so it's no surprise that my son isn't wild about it either.

I've heard that cheese and yogurt and things are fine if they don't like milk. 

I have the opposite problem.  I have two kids ages 4 and 2 and we go through a gallon of whole milk in 2-3 days... It drives me nuts.  My two-year-old doesn't eat much though so I don't like to limit it.

Jane

i always hated milk, but i ended up fine! (well... i guess so...)

i was a complete cheese head, though. i ate cheese ALL the time. so i still got milk-like products.

I was on WIC with my first child, and about two years in, the kiddo went from drinking like 1/4 gallon a day to not touching it. Not in cereal, not with chocolate syrup. WIC told me make it into pudding, etc, and in recipes they still get their serving of calcium. They also put me on a block of cheese each month, and she would eat cheese like no one's business. The nutritionist with WIC told me that basically there are so many ways to get calcium, but fewer ways to get Vitamin D, and that you need a good combo of iron, Vitamin D, and calcium to ensure that it is absorbed right.

Also, I am proof that a finicky child can still be healthy, as both my kids have made the 'stages' part of eating (this month no meat, next month, no bread products) an art. The big thing, again from WIC and proven by my kids, is not to press, because the harder you push them to clean their plates and finish their juice, milk or water, the more they resist, and a stage may turn into a permanent dislike. Just keep offering her a couple of ounces every day, in case the taste comes back for it. Also, the lo-fat strawberry, chocolate and other flavored drink mixes are a good way to get them to drink milk.

She should be drinking the milk, and whole milk at that.  The fat in the milk helps build up things like the myelin sheath on nerves (deterioration of this is what causes MS).  I not saying not giving her milk would cause MS, of course.  Yogurt and stuff is usually made with 1% milk so she's not getting all the milk fat she needs.  Try getting her to eat whole milk cheeses or making it into pudding as one person suggested.  If it's a taste issue you could always try different flavor syrups.  Also, as one person suggested she could be lactose intolerant, and if that's the case there are other options for dealing with that.

@neverdie373@xanga - I JUST learned this in Psychology on Monday...My son turned one year last week so I will start weaning him onto whole milk within days.  I would have done it anyway without knowing why they need whole milk, but now it means so much more to me after knowing what it does for them.  Very important!

The yogurt and calcium orange juice will be fine.  Don't stress about it.  

I would think that dairy products in general should be okay. I don't know why getting the nutrients specifically from milk would be important.

We give my son chocolate milk. You could try Carnation Instant Breakfast because it has less sugar and some extra nutrients. Or maybe you could feed her fortified cereal with the milk in it?

If you're insistent on milk, I'd try a little ovaltine in with it. But I agree with everyone else- Cheese, yogurt, and other dairy work fine as substitutes. My daughter still gets most of her dairy this way, although she does drink milk too. Yogurt just tastes better. 

I don't believe that ANYONE needs milk and I do NOT intend to give my baby whole milk.  He can get better fats in other ways.  (He and I both love flax seed and knowing that there are no alergies in either side of the family, I will slowly be introducing him to various nuts.).  The calcium in milk is not absorbed as well as people think it is.  Leafy green vegetables are excellent calcium choices.  The best source of vitamin D is sunshine.  And that's free.

There are countless ways to get calcium into your childs diet without any milk at all. We have two children in our family who are allergic to milk and both of them are doing just fine without any dairy in their diet at all. I mean logically speaking cows milk was created for cows right? Not for humans. Their pediatrician strongly discourages the use of cows milk in humans encouraging breast feeding and then as they are weaned the natural elimination of milk from their diets entirely. Here is a website that might be helpful to you. http://nomilk.com/

Yogurt and whatnot are fine for getting the benefits of milk... anything that has milk in it probably also has the good bits of milk in it, too. Milk is good, although I wouldn't say necessary, for the first 3 or so years of a person's life, biologically. After that the body becomes less capable of digesting lactose because it doesn't actually require it.

I can't imagine not liking milk when I was a kid, though. I used to live on that stuff, and I've been lactose intolerant my whole life (we didn't connect the dots for years, though).