Q: My daughter is now five and a half months old. We have started feeding her with dairy milk (full cream) for the last one week. We also started feeding her with Cerelac. What I want to know is the quantity of dairy milk that can be given to her and how good / bad it is? Should I go for powder milk like Lactogen etc or can I continue with dairy milk if it is OK?

A:It is best to continue to give breast milk and start giving her semisolid creals which could be cerelac, suji, daliya. If you have to give outside milk for whatever reasons, then the better milk to give is one of the formula which are fortified milk especially if you have to give more feeds. If supplementation of top milk feed is going to be occasional feed or one odd feed a day, you may give full cream milk which is boiled properly and cream removed and given undiluted. Quantity of milk to be given is best decided by the baby, let her decide how much she wants to drink.