Infant with Potential Milk Allergy - Seeking Advice

I've got a 10 week old and she is allergic to milk protein. I've been on a dairy free diet for about 4 weeks now and she is so much happier. There are lots of foods you can eat. for breads go for french or italian breads, they are dairy free. Check all ingredients and avoid anything with milk, whey and casien. (whey and casien are milk proteins). I'm using rice milk when I need to add milk to something. for breakfast I'm usually eating oatmeal or bagels (no dairy!) I put either a vegan butter or peanut butter on it. Pretty much all asian food is dairy free too. You'll have to spend more time at the grocery at first but places like whole foods and possibily trader joes has a list of all their non-dairy foods at their customer service desk. just ask for it.

there are treats too. Newman O's mint are dairy free and very tastey and guess what is dairy free....pop tarts! I love pop tarts. :)

My best advice is not to let yourself get too hungry and make sure you have good things you are able to eat stocked in the house.

Good luck! I won't lie...i'm looking forward to being done with this diet but it's not horrible. i miss my mocha's with real milk.

hi rory -

my daughter has a milk allergy and i am breastfeeding her, so she and i are both on a dairy free diet. you will get lots of opinions on what you can and cannot eat. i got three different opinions from the nutritionist, gastroenterologist, and pediatrician. the most conservative doc said to give up all milk products and also my daughter would have to be soy-free since lots of babies with milk allergy have soy allergies. check out the kellymom website and specifically their milk allergy section. also la leche league. i know you are formula feeding, but these sites are informative regarding how to go dairy free. best of luck!

Hi,

I found out that my daughter had dairy and egg allergies early on and was told by my pediatrician to cut dairy out of my diet since I was breastfeeding. Try using soy products for yourself. There are also soy based formulas out there for the baby. I would also recommend taking your child to see an allergist before you go through the hassle of changing diets. You will be able to find out if your baby is truly allergic to these foods immediately.

Ditto the both previous posters. See an allergist to confirm allergies, but the diapers sound like it. Haven't heard about the allergy occuring after the stomach flu. Don't think that's correct. We see Dr. Kim at Children's at the Glenbrook Hospital annex (800-KIDS-DOC). Highly recommend Children's. They're the best in the area. They'll do skin test, blood test and combine that w/ your child's actual symtoms. You need to take all 3 to confirm a diagnosis. W/o history, the tests mean nothing.

They're also doing a food allergy study that will help find the cause and a cure. If you're interested in it, don't get the blood work done then. You can do it all at the same time w/ the study. Or just redo it if you want later. We tested at 1 and did the study w/ the retest at age 2. Would have done it all at the same time if we knew, at age 1. The study is so important.

I eliminated dairy, egg, peanut, tree nut, fish and shellfish for 2 months when i was nursing. DD self weaned after that at 13 months. It's doable, definitely. Go to www.kidswithfoodallergies.org for tons of support, help, advice, recipes, info on elimination diets (for nursing). There's 8,0000 parents on there. It's free for the basic membership. $25 for the full membership and worth every penny. Even w/ Children's, this site has been my lifesaver. DD outgrew egg recently. Good luck!

ETA: If your child is allergic, the allergist may recommend avoiding cross contamination - same lines, same facility. We do that and it's standart protocol. They may also want you to protectively avoid peanut, tree nut, shellfish etc. If they can and have tolerated the food, like egg, soy, wheat, then they're considered not allergic and can have it.

my children had problems with milk and I give them all prosobee lipil formula and it was great for them. My husband however did get a bad stomache flu and became lactose intollerant and can not have dairy. He can eat cheese but if it is a cheese dip from the store he has to read ingredients to see if it contains milk and if we go out to eat he makes sure that any potatoes or other things that he gets is not made with milk. At home if I make mac and cheese or any thing you would normally use milk in I use powdered coffee creamer. For instance if it calls for 1 c water and 1/2 c milk I will use 1 1/4 c water (depends on what you make you might need a little more water) and then I mix the creamer in it really however much you want and to me it tastes the same as having milk in it. but for my kids they used prosobee I tries the nutramigen and it did not work for my kids. once they got to 1 yr they were able to have milk. if you look at the store there is lactose free milk and you could try that my husband can have it to I bbel;ieve deans make it. but my husband gets the diarehea if he has milk just like your baby and it hits really quick and he gets stomache cramps from it to.

My son's doctor thought he was allergic to milk & soy. So everything with milk or soy was out. If you are just stopping milk, you then can substitute soy milk. We had to drink rice milk. I also nursed my son until 15 months but he did start milk at about 10 months. I nursed in the AM & before bed. He drank milk at daycare. You will need to read EVERY label. Most labels will tell at the end of the ingredients in large lettering if it contains any dairy. You will become creative! There is soy yogurt, I think soy cheese? Check pasta labels b/c they vary but we had rice or wheat noodles. We finally ended up seeing an allergist at Children's Memorial. They did a few scratch tests and he was negative for both milk & soy. Not sure if he was allergic & grew out of it?? But he is loving milk now. I would recommend seeing someone at Children's. We saw Dr Story who was great but there are four who are all excellent.

I am also nursing my 5 1/2 mos old who has an allergy to milk. His pediatrician recommended I also give up soy (including soybean oil, soy lecithin - which is in almost every frozen/processed food, etc.) because apparently a significant number of kids who have a milk protein allergy are also allergic to soy. There are a lot of foods you can eat, mostly, you just have to think in advance. Wholefoods and an Evanston store on Chicago Ave. called JD Mills have lots of good labeled products. For dairy allergies, you need to be cautious of labels that contain whey, casein (the milk protein which is what babies are typically allergic to), caramel, etc. If you do have to give up soy, there are canola based mayonaisses easy to find. We eat a lot of homemade stir frys, chicken/potato dishes, crockpot meatloaf, chili, greens, salads, oatmeal (with rice milk), grains like quinoa, fruit, etc. , and cook with canola and/or olive oil, etc. So there is a lot you can eat. Also, I think I put this on another post once but Enjoy Life brand is totally allergen free and makes the BEST chocolate chips that are both soy and dairy free (and nut eggs wheat free too). They are at Whole Foods. I also drink Rice Milk (whole foods vanilla is pretty good) and have made really great hot chocolate with the chocolate chips and rice milk (add a little cardamom and cinnamon). One thing I don't know is whether you can have goat cheese products - that may be a possibility and there is butter and cheese and milk from goat -you'd have to ask the pediatrician. good luck!

Hi Rory,
I'm a fellow preemie M. - so glad your son is doing well! We are vegan (no animal products) by choice and I know eliminating milk can seem very daunting. Here's a link to some common foods that just happen to be dairy free - http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/ - the best thing to do is probably to focus on what you can eat, rather than what you can't. There are also a lot of great milk substitutes out there (soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, etc.) and all can be used plain as well as in cooking/baking. Keep in mind that soy is also a common allergen. Also be sure to wait on introducing solids until you son is gestationally at least 6 months - introducing solids sooner can contribute to food allergies as well. And keep on nursing! That's the best thing you can do for him!
Hope this helps!
A.

Hi Rory:
As a M. of a 3-year old with multiple food allergies I would agree that your little one does have typical allergic reactions. As other moms posted, allergies to dairy are often accompanied by allergy to soy, and possibly allergies to other foods :( It would seem reasonable to do allergy testing to get some answers (I've heard that Children's Memorial has great a team; our pediatric allergist is Dr. Segalene with offices in Naperville and Downers Grove). In addition, if your son does have food allergies, the absolute best thing you can do for him (in order to maximize his chances of outgrowing the allergies and minimize the severity of reactions) is to breastfeed as long as possible w/o introducing any formula. This will require you to significantly adjust your diet (and places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's have been instrumental in our nutritional transition), but your son will greatly benefit from it! In addition to some of the resources others have indicated a good one is POCA (Parents of children with food allergies) of DuPage. I wish you all the best! If all of this sounds too confusing or overwhelming right now, just hang in there, get informed, get support (unfortunatelly and fortunatelly a community of families dealing with allergies is very large) and listen to your instincts... It will all work out!

The organic and natural foods labels are very easy to read. That is where you will find the largest variety of dairy free foods. I found that Woodmans is a lot cheaper than the other stores. My son was and still is very sensitive to dairy so our family switched to soy. It takes some time to get use to soy products but after a month or so you won't even notice the difference. Good luck.