Can a dairy allergy be mild?

[CrazyOVERbaby]

Something has just occured to me after many months of dealing with my14MO DDs many 'niggles,' as I call them. I was wondering if she might have a mild reaction to dairy products? Her 'symptoms' are

She was always a bit of a sod to feed from being a tiny baby - was squirmy, windy and fidgety - but nothing severe enough like colic/reflux for me to be overly concerned

Now and again (maybe once evy month) she brings up her milk feed up for no reason that I can fathom. She's always fine after these incidents and usually wants another bottle.

She's always has runny poos - very rarely does she have a well formed one - but again, nothing serious enough to cause me too much concern

For as long as I can remember she is wheezy and always has a rattle in her chest - have been to the docs about this - he thinks she will either outgrow it we will see it develop into asthma, which she can be tested for at about 24 months

Runny nosed at all times - never really worried me, a lot of babies are like this

She is very restless and coughs a lot during the night. She can moan and groan and I've noticed she brings her knees up more when she's in her cot asleep as though she's uncomfortable.

Now and again gets flare ups of what I would describe as mild eczema - but a bit of oilatum for a few days tends to sort it.

She currently has 2 9 oz bottles of Aptamil growing up milk per day - one on a morning and one just before bed. I have noticed that after her morning milk she is suddenly less interested in breakfast and seems grumpy and irritable. I've been putting this down to the fact that she is possibly getting ready to drop her monring feed and replace it with a more substantial breakfast. But coupled with the night-time discomfort I'm sensing, plas all of the other 'symptoms' I'm wondering if there's more to it.

Probably being an over anxious mum - but DD1 never had all of this!

Any suggestions?

[RitaMorgan]

Could be a cow's milk protein intolerance - very common in babies/children.

[StepInTheRightDirection]

Agree with Rita. Definitely worth investigating.

[sleepy78]

My dd is allergic to cow's milk and the only symptom she had was runny poos for a month which only started when she was about 10 months old. As soon as she changed milk they stopped.

[CrazyOVERbaby]

Oh, I'm so relieved you don;t all think I'm a nutter! Can I ask which milk you switched to? I'm thinking soy formula?

[youarekidding]

Allergic DS has a friend who has this. He can't have any dairy, whey or lactose. He gets a build up apparently and then is really sick. So can tolerate it to a level iyswim? I asked his mum if intolerence or allergy as he is coming to DS party and obviously if a touch reaction would have been detoling the house prior to his visit.

It is just an ingestion reaction, and a small amount wouldn't cause too many symptoms.

Of course your not a nutter - you've noticed something not quite right and are thinking of ways to help this. That makes you a good mum.

[sleepy78]

I live abroad so it might not be the same but she has a milk where the normal cow milk proteins are broken down to make them more digestable.
Then she has goat and sheep milk yoghurts for lunch and snack - I know from experience they're not so easy to find in England! Sorry, I'm not sure that's very helpful...

[RitaMorgan]

I think that's called hydrolised formula sleepy?

At 14 months though I guess she doesn't need formula and you could try rice/oat milk, goats milk etc.

[ChocaMum]

I definitely think your dd's list of symptoms sound like an allergy, the non immune/ non direct allergy. My DD also has this to cows milk protein but has only recently been diagnosed. She has always had sunny poos and a lot more than other babies, use to bring up milk even after starting solids, coughing lots especially at night, lots of runny noses, eczema etc etc. More recently she started losing weight and bearly went off the charts. Like kidding said it's not harmful to have small amounts unlike the immune reaction allergies, but removing it will improve your dd's appetite and make her much happier. The only way you will know for sure is to trial a 6-8 week of absolutely no diary, rice or oat milk as a substitue rather than soya because 50% will also react to soya.

You can try to push for a referral from your GP as ideally it would help to have input from an allergy specialist and dietician. Good luck!

[thisisyesterday]

it sounds more like an intolerance than an allergy, but yes, it can vary in severity

i wouldn't worry too much about special formula, but it's worth seeing your gp and getting a referral to the allergy specialist. they'll be able to confirm if it's an allergy or not although, as I say, that seems unlikely... you'd expect an almost instant reaction with an allergy, as the body fights it straight away, and you might see things like swelling, contact rash etc
the fact that it's more gut related, i think, points to an intolerance. where your child just has trouble digesting it, or it irritates the gut.

aaanyway, yes, get a referral, and they may give you one to a dietician too if you wanted to find out more about managing her diet.

personally i would switch to something like oat milk and then just make sure she has a good varied diet.