Soya milk for toddler - bad for teeth?

RedXIV

Hi all,

Hoping for a bit of advice really. We had a checkup for our youngest (7 months) and while the nurse was here she also looked over the next one (22 months) who had already been diagnosed with an intolerance to dairy. We've been giving her soya milk for about 6 months quite successfully and she's taken to it well. The nurse said the youngest is starting to show the same signs of the intolerance as he's still being breastfed by herself and she's a big fan of all things dairy.

The nurse said to be wary of soya milk as an alternative as its very bad for the kids teeth but this is the first I've heard of this? (I'm by no means an expert)

Is this true? Should we take her off the soya milk also? If it is true, is there anything else we can give her to give her the nutrition she's getting from it, particularly calcium which I'm quite paranoid about at this stage.

Cheers for your input!

EileenG

Most soya milk is sweetened, so yes, it would be bad for the teeth.

The best thing you can do is continue to breastfeed. We tend to wean early in Ireland (the recommended age is sometime over two years) and have to put in dairy milk instead. Don't wean early just because your neighbours are.

El_Dangeroso

Green vegetables are an amazingly rich source of calcium and a great time to give kids a taste for vegetables is when you are weaning them, Just remember that it takes about 15-20 times of trying a new food to get used to it. So expect a lot of unfinished plates to start with.

ballsymchugh

while the sugar in soy milk is the type that's used by bacteria to break down the enamel, this can only happen over time, so your best option would be to try and clean the teeth soon after, even if it just means the baby drinking water, or rubbing the teeth with some muslin wrapped around your finger.

you only get decay when you have

bacteria + sugar(sucrose) + teeth + time.

if you're missing any of them, then you don't get decay, so your best option is to decrease the time the sugar would have in contact with the teeth.
tooth decay is a VERY slow process, so don't be overly worried at such an early stage.

DHennessy

I dont like the idea of giving a baby soya milk. The whole thing with estrogen etc. I was giving soya milk as a baby because i was lactose intolerant. All my life ive had a lot of serious health problems and a hormone imbalance. Of course this could be just coincidence and most likely is but i do wonder if i had been breastfed would i have the same problems.

RedXIV

Hi all, thanks for the responses so far.

Just to clarify. The youngest is still being breastfed and we weren't thinking of weaning in the immediate future but were looking at it in a few months.

Its my daughter who I'm most worried about with this but as pointed out by ballsymchugh, a quick clean should sort out any issues.

Cheers!