Milk & Meat - Chinuch

QUESTION: At what age should children be taught to wait between meat and milk?

ANSWER: There is no obligation to make a child wait between meat and milk if they are below the age of chinuch (the age at which a child can understand that they must separate between meat and milk). The exact age depends upon the understanding of the child. The Be’er Moshe (8:36) writes that one may give a child milk immediately following meat until the age of three, and there is no need to wait at all. However, one may not serve the child meat and milk at the same time, and therefore, the child’s mouth should be cleaned of meat prior to having dairy. One must first remove the plate of meat, wipe around the child’s mouth if it is dirty and then one may give them a bottle of milk. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky, zt”l (Emes L’Yaakov p. 306) held that a child under six need not wait.

Once children reach the age of chinuch, they should be taught to wait one hour. As the child gets older, they should be taught to wait longer. If a child is weak or is fussy and needs to drink milk, since a young child has the status of a choleh (one who is ill) because of their reliance on milk, it is enough if they wait one hour until they are nine or ten years old (see Be’er Moshe 8:36 and Teshuvos V’hanhagos 1:435).

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