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Dairy free diet ideas?

Hi Ladies

My LO was diagnosed with a cows milk allergy yesterday after a bad reaction to SMA. I am currently in week 2 of weaning and now need some ideas as to what to avoid or foods that are good for him in terms of vitamins.

Any ideas/tips you could pass on would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Kay

Replies

  • I'll be watching this one with interest. I am meeting with the Paediatrician and dietician next week to confirm whether my baby has the same thing. So far I've only been giving him veges, fruit and starchy stuff like toast, cereal and ricecakes.

    Am hoping the dietician will give me some ideas about what to give him so if so I'll report back!
  • Thanks Peeptoe. I am going to a weaning party this afternoon so will see if I can pick up any info from the HV.
  • Depending on the level of allergy (whether it's lactose or all of the milk) you might be able to use the lactofree brands. (I'm lactose intollerant so can't have cows milk but can have their stuff).
    Usual veggies, potatoes, pastas etc should all be fine.
    If you can use the lactofree then there are a lot of options as they do yogurts, milk (so you can cook all sorts of sauces, use cereal etc), cheese, cream cheese. That makes life a lot easier on the options front, even if they are more expensive.

    It shouldn't really be too limiting (depending on the severity). When weaning most babies are on the same sort of diet that peeptoe is using except with the addition of yogurts and maybe custard, so they aren't really missing out on much at the moment!
    Keep up with the veggies, fruit, starches and depending on their age you can introduce pasta, rice etc. Bread does often have a tiny amount of milk powder in it but it's generally not anywhere near enough to cause any sorts of problems for most people with lactose intollerances.
    If you're still using a special follow on milk, then they should be getting enough vitamins etc from that so any from food are a bonus rather than essential.

    Good luck.
  • I'm just gatecrashing (lurking in baby occasionally as no 2 is due in Nov) but can offer some help as I'm lactose intolerant and my son is milk protein intolerant.

    Ok firstly I cannot recommend highly enough that you see a pediatric dietician as they will be able to give you baby specific help (my son wasn't diagnosed till he was 2 so we get different info). Have you been given a dairy free formula for your lo? And you could do with finding out whether your lo has an allergy or an intolerance - the difference being that an intolerance they will hopefully grow out of or at least learn their limits. Also is it milk protein or lactose that there is a problem with as they are 2 totally different things (although my hv seems to think they are the same...sigh!)

    First of all - when lo is first diagnosed you need to keep them off all mp/lactose until the dietician gives you the ok to reintroduce it into the diet (if its an intolerance). For my son we waited 6 months as it gave chance to get it out of his system and note improvements. Things to check out in ingredients are things like casein/whey as well as anything listed as milk solids, lactose, etc. Some are sneaky and I can't remember the whole list as we aren't too fussy now about small amounts in my sons (or my) diet. Some things aren't too bad in moderation - eg my dietician says not to worry for my son about having margerine on something if out and about as the amount of milk protein in one small bit of marg is so small as to be negligable but again best to take advice on that.

    Soya is probably your friend lol. You can buy soya deserts by provamil or alpro from asda/sainsburys/holland and barrett - although I tried my son on them when he was about 10 months old and he gagged on them as they are a bit gloopy. He loves them now, and to be fair he wasn't good with lumps and thick foods as a baby so still worth a try.

    You can also get alpro or provamil custard from the same shops - it tastes ok. Same again for dairy free chocolate and chocolate buttons - I know chocolate won't be high on the weaning list but thought I'd mention it in case it helps anyone else with older kiddies reading this. SAinsburys also sell inexpensive dairy free easter eggs if you are quick.

    Fruit pots - cow & gate, organix etc - just look for the ones that say 100% fruit and they are fine.

    You can get dairy free cream again from the same shops. Probably not relevent now but just runnign through what I can think of off the top of my head.

    Asda do a range of their own soya yogs, as well as the alpro soya yoghurts - but they do have fruit bits in them. Sainsburys do the alpro yoghurts as well but they also do teh alpro smooth yoghurts.

    Organix do list on their website which of their foods are suitable for certain allergies, and I'm pretty sure it was Cow & Gate that have a dairy free recipe book.

    You can get dairy free spread (either just dairy free or a soya spread) in the marg section of any supermarket. I forget the brand but they are either green or yellow. (I'm at work or I'd check in the fridge).

    Booths supermarket (and possibly others.. I'm not sure) sell a dairy free swedish glace icecream. ITs really nice.

    For cooking - assuming you've been given a dairy free formula then you can just use that. The dietician told me that younger children shouldn't use things like lactofree milk/goats milk etc and especially shouldn't have the rice milk (its foul anyway). My son has an oat milk called Oatley - he has the one with added calcium so if you were to use a non-formula one in cookign you'd be best off using calcium added soya or oatley (thats what the dietician told me).

    If you know whether its lactose or milk protein lo has a problem with then that gives you cheese options too. Lactose free cheese is not bad tasting. If its milk protein then you may be able to try goats milk cheese as its a different type of milk protein to cows milk protein - dietician says some mp intolerant people are ok with goats milk stuff, some arent.

    Hope this helps some..hope its not too much of an info dump though.. but i have to say that livign with a lactose or mp intolerance isn't too bad - really the only thing my little guy does without is cheese (although he can now have it occasionally), he loves the oat milk, he loves the soya puds, dairy free choc buttons taste quite nice & he doesn't know the difference - and we found an icecream van that sells the dairy free stuff so he gets icecream occasionally when we go out to the beach. Once you get used to checking packets its not so bad - asda are quite good cause they'll clearly label stuff with whether they contain milk or not then if they do we just skim the list to see whether its lactose or not. One thing to watch out for is that some medicines contain lactose (although probably not so relevent for a lo)

    Probably sounds from what I've written that lo lives on puddings and ice cream but he doesn't..honest - its just that I've tried to list the substitute foods that I can think of as stuff like fruit/veggies and other home done stuff is pretty easy to keep dairy out but its handy to just be able to grab a fruit pot or whatever. Its definately a lot easier than a few years ago for lactose intolerance - when I was diagnosed it was soya milk or nothing.. I'd have killed for some lactose free cheese lol.

    Good luck getting things sorted

  • Thanks for all the info ladies, I have printed it off for my Dylan's Dairy-free Diet book :\)

    Dylan's reaction to the SMA was quite severe, he only had two mouthfuls, threw it all back up and was covered head to foot in hives within 20 minutes image

    I will persue my GP for a referral to a Pedeatric (sp?) dietician and will continue the thread with any hints or tips I receive.

    Kay and Dylan x
  • Oh poor little guy..that sounds awful!

    One other thing I was going to add but forgot - soup is a good one for weaning if you do home made that way you can keep the dairy out. Annabel karmal has a leek & potato one in the 6-9 month section although you might need to find a substitute for the greek yoghurt that goes in it. We also have a veg soup & tomato soup recipe from a gina ford book that lo still eats.
  • Hi Lizzie has cmpi and Li. how old is your LO?
    I was told not to use any soya based product until she was 6 months (we started weaning at 17 weeks as her intolerence gave her awful colic as well as server ezecma,upset tummy)
    anyway if your LO is 6 months you can use soya milk to cook with (Lizzie is on nuitramigen milk) and hollan and barrets sale a soya custard which lizzie has for puddings when she has something different from fruit!
    we still are having manily veggies at the moment and I am going to make her some mash (using soya milk) tomorrow.
    I have been told not to give her any fish until she is 9 months.
    I did start to introduce wheat based products but within hours her skin was sore again (after being clear for a good month or so now) and her poo was almost reaching her shoulders again! so she now cant have any wheat for a month!
    I found brekfast was the hardest thing to sort out, so what we do now is readybrek with soya milk, or fruit.
    if you ever do use jarred food read the labels carefully as somethings you wouldnt expect to have milk in them do!

    you can buy a dairy free butter like spread called pure (its witht he other butters)

    what milk is your LO on now? x
  • Hi Wannababy

    Dylan will be 24 weeks on Friday and he is on Nutramigen also. He was on Wysoy but I was told to take him off it as it contained oestrogen and it also made him constipated. I have used the Nutramigen in some of the purees so far, and he appears to like it (yuk on my part though for milky carrots!). Is it OK to cook with?

    I have bought some pouches from Plum and Ellas kitchen as these appear to be dairy free, I am planning on trying them in a few days when the allergic reaction has calmed down a bit.

    Wannababy, have you moved Lizzie on to the stage 2 Nutramigen yet?

    Kay x
  • lizzie was put on wysoy to start with too and i also got told off by hv so she got it changed to nutramigen,lol.
    it is ok to cook with just smells awful. lizzie refused the one dairy free baby cereal i could find when i put her milk on it.
    i am seeing dr tomorrow for her 6 month review and will see then if they will put her on number 2!
    the ellas kitchen and plum ones are best as it has no rubbish in and thats what i use whjen i go to my parents house.
    lizzie loves butterniut sqash and seet potaoes puree -no need to add milk x
  • Ill offer my thoughts, although you have had lots of info here!

    My boys are both allergic to cows milk protein, and the above is correct, there is a big difference between an intollerance and an allergy. My boys are allergic - they developed severe symptoms and lost weight etc.

    We cant even give Soya as they react to this also so thats a big plus for you if you can. We are on Neocate milk, but I dont use it in cooking, and they are drinking less and less as the days pass! They are 9 months now though.

    The boys have meat, veg, fruit, sugar free jelly, pasta, bread (in small quantities), Ella's kitchen cookies. They have porridge oats for breakfast, made with water and apricot, which they love. Vitalite is the name of the spread and its made with sunflower oil. My boys dont like it though!!

    I wont lie, we have found it very very difficult, and food can be a bit boring, but I am trying to vary their diet a little. We have an appointment with the paediatrition to get results from blood tests regarding their allergies and im desperate for them to say I can begin milk challenges!!

    Gemma, Ryan and Alfie 9 months
  • Wow, thanks for all the info everyone!

    I guess that this was a bit of an inevitable path for us as there is atopia on both mine (I have ezcema and asthma) and my husbands side. Hopefully I can get in to see a paediatiric dietition soon enough.

    As I have said I plan on keeping a "Dylan's Dairy-free Diet Diary" with all this information, recipes, foods to avoid etc. So hopfully we can share this with others who may need it.

    I knew the BE ladies would come up trumps!

    Kay x
  • Pure spread..thats the one! Thanks wanna baby. I've only been using it for the last 5 or 6 years but oh no can I remember the name!! there are quite a few that are dairy free though according to my lo's nursery - they are brilliant at doing dairy free for the allergy kids and they cooke verything with dairy free spread and soya milk.

    Apparently they used to prescribe wysoy or other soya milk for allergy/intolerant babies as a dairy free alternative but the dietician said that some kids were also developing soya intolerances so now they prescribe neocate. Even I managed to develop a soya intolerance after going dairy free so I can see how it'd happen with babies too. My nephew went straight onto neocate at about 3 months when he was diagnosed with mp intolerance

    We didn't bother checking ingredients on bread as mp content is fairly negligable and with my son being older when diagnosed we weren't so bothered about being 100% mp free but from when mymum was on a dairy free diet (incorrectly cause the docs wouldn't test her properly!!) I remember that she found more brown breads than white were dairy free.

    I think we probably found it easier than most as my son was older, and also cause I've done it all before for me. I know i have some info and recipes and stuff - I'll try and dig it out over the next few days and see whats relevent to babies

    Incidently - gemmiebaby - have the docs said how accurate the blood tests are? Its just that i asked about allergy tests as mylittle guy keeps having eczema flareups but I was told they don't do them until much older.. and the doc we see is a skin specialist and she listened to me about the mp intolerance in the first place so I don't think she's fobbing me off - or is it because your boys have had really bad reactions that they are being done? Hope you don't mind me being nosy but I'm convinced there is something else my son is reacting to - I just don't know what
  • Lizzie has now been put on the follow on milk- nutramigen 2.
    I asked the doctors about trying her with egg (as ive been told not to give her fish and was unsure of egg) and she said to try it as \lizzie will probably love it but iobv if she reacts to it,levae it for a month and then try again.
    I am going to start writing a proper list of what she can and cant have as it does get difficult to remember when you are shopping!
    I was told that they wont test Lizzie whilst she is so young but I think this varies alot between doctors around the country. If you do want your baby tested then you can ask for a peads referal. I declined and said if I start having problems then I will go see one but my doctors are fab andf have been a great help x
  • Wannababy - I demanded at paed referral as my drs were absolutely useless and refused to believe anything was wrong, even when Alfie lost weight and became very poorly!

    Kia - If im honest, I dont know accurately. The paed wanted to do them as, even with the milk free diet, Alfie's excema bleeds, itches and causes all sorts of problems with sleep etc. They have only tested Alfie, although the results will, for us, affect how we treat Ryan also, but his skin is no where near as bad. Alfie was 8 months when tested and I do agree with wannababy - it seems to vary throughout the country as to whether they do things or not.

    The boys were also put on Neocate at just past 3 months.
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