Travelling abroad with dairy and soya intolerant baby

[3boys3dogshelp]

Just wondering if anyone with more experience than me could give me some advice please.
We travel in 2 weeks to Mallorca for a week. Ds is 9 mo and dairy and soya intolerant. i am still feeding him so i need to avoid them too. He was prescribed Nutramigen but reacted so should be trying Neocate tomorrow for the first time but atm is having breastmilk and KoKo coconut milk to drink (before i get flamed i know this is far from ideal and we are working on it but unlikely to be magically transformed by holiday).
My question is what should i take/what are we allowed to fly with with regards to food and drink for the two of us? Any experiences of what is likely to be available there?
I'm having a bit of a wobble really, we have only travelled with children twice before, always with extended family and straightforward children!! All advice very welcome .

[HotMommy]

If your baby is still breastfeeding then you shouldn't feel bad about giving them coconut milk as a drink. If you can keep bf then eventually just wean straight on to coco milk rather than first weaning to the formula amd then weaning to coco milk like i am having to do now. We went to France recently and did not find coconut milk in the grocery stores. We packed two cartons in our checked luggage. We did find 100% olive oil spread. I found that they had the same allergy warnings on labels and i was able to find plenty of packaged things that didnt contain dairy, egg, or sesame (my daughters allergies). In Europe they seem to have loads of different kinds of fruit pots - my daughter loved them. If you are self catering or have a kitchen then it shouldn't be a problem to shop for the same sorts of food you have here. You can take whatever baby food you want on the plane - they might just ask you to taste it. Eating out might be more difficult - we avoided it or packed a lunch for our daughter to be safe. Good luck - it's so stressful with allergies.

[blueseashore]

We struggled to find coconut milk or oat milk in provincial Italy (thankfully for us there was fresh soya milk, tho that doesn't help you!). You can get long life Koko cartons - if you can manage it suitcase wise I'd take a couple of those. I took quite a few Plum/ Ella's pouches and some rice cakes and bread sticks in my luggage too but actually as we were self catering for much of our stay it was fine just to cook fresh DF/SF stuff. My one top tip is to find out how to say that "I am/ my child is allergic to dairy and soya" in the local language. We found waiters etc really helpful.

Enjoy!

[TheannamoLeelu]

Call the airline and ask for extra baggage allowance (you might need a doctors letter).

What about oat milk as an alternative, if you can't find the koko?

How much are you still bfing? Because you could just get away with only bfing perhaps, and just use water on cereal?

Take as much food as poss for snacks and dinners. I took all of my 9 months olds when I went to Spain and was fine for a week, just topped up with local stuff like fruit of possible but I had enough myself to cover the week. Did the same travelling at a year outside of Europe too.

[3boys3dogshelp]

Great this is all really helpful, thanks. We should be ok for baggage allowance as there are 5 of us so i can't carry our allowed weight as it is! i am a bit worried about losing the baggage or the cartons exploding all over our clothes but i guess the risk is no higher than suncream exploding. i am still feeding All The Time, so not worried about him really, more that i can't make enough bm to keep up with demand if i'm struggling to eat and drink properly. The odd time i've had even a small amount of dairy he has been ill so i need to be really careful not to slip up.

[3boys3dogshelp]

I will definitely stock up on pouches then just add bits and pieces while we are there, that would be much easier, thanks.

[TheannamoLeelu]

I think if you are bfing all the time you'll be fine, your body will just adjust the supply automatically & even if you aren't eating much your body will prioritise making the milk.its only a week too. Even if you just have to eat a boring diet of safe foods that are fairly certain not to contain milk/soya, eg chips, potatos, steak, its only a week of putting up with it.

Oh & I had to cut out the same from my diet when bfing, it was hard, esp on holiday where there is so much food you can't have! BUT when I stopped bfing & had the food I'd not been able to eat, it wasnt as good as I'd imagined it would be, so don't loose heart, you are doing something wonderful for you're child as they will maybe outgrow these allergies quicker because of your breast milk. Just saying, as I know what is like to have those cravings!

[Portlypenguin]

We take loads of cartons of oat milk (ds' milk) and lots of snacks. Usually raisins, yoyo bears, humzingers, biscuits, cereal bars, fruit puree sachets. Then we see what happens. If there isn't anyone for DS or he is being difficult, i just ply him with familiar snacks and bread. It has worked for 4 trips abroad for us....it is only a few days. Highly recommend sourcing ice lollies.

I just wrap the cartons well and hope for no explosions. So far so good.

We had a piece of paper with the my child is allergic... Message on it. Was very helpful in turkey!

[3boys3dogshelp]

I like the idea of writing it down although even here I have been shocked by how poor other people's understanding of what we can eat is, even when I explain it in my first language!
I feel great too so i don't mind the diet really. At home I don't feel like I'm missing out as I enjoy cooking so I just adapt everything to suit ds3, make my own ice cream, bread etc.