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Allergies and intolerances

Weaning baby with unknown allergies

7 replies

Mazzimaz2709 · 08/02/2016 15:44

Hello, re-posting this on here as had no responses in weaning thread:

Hello, I have just started weaning my 6 month old who has been on neocate formula since Christmas and EBF before then. She had blood in her poo pretty much since birth and I had been on an elimination diet for 3 months to try and establish if she had any allergies (this was inconclusive but since on neocate the blood has stopped).
Now we are weaning, we have to take it very slowly with very simple food offered one at a time, however... After three days of happily taking sweet potato and pear (at dinner time) she suddenly got very windy at night. Waking every hour with her legs pulled up, crying in pain and difficult to settle. She would occasionally fart but that didn't appear to offer instant relief. After four nights like this we decided to stop solids and she was instantly better. We had a scheduled appointment with the dietician (due to previous blood in her nappy) later that week so decided to seek further advice then.

The dietician then advised us to start again with golden delicious apples and totally dissed sweet potato as an "Annabel karmel" fad (?!!) and introduce baby rice, chicken and white potato, quickly building up to three basic meals of these foods per day so we can try "challenging" her with other food one at a time, knowing her basic diet was not causing any problems.

So, after two days of golden delicious apple and baby rice for breakfast and then, another two days of adding just Apple at dinner time... The windy/uncomfortable nights have started again!

From your experience weaning babies without food allergies/intolerances... Is this just a normal consequence of weaning? Is it the baby rice (not offered first time round with sweet potato/pear)? Or does this sound like something related to her gut issues? The dietician's response to this question first time round was "who knows, with babies"!!! It was my idea to stop feeding at dinner time and just give her breakfast, so that it could give her system time to get used to solids without disturbing her (and my!) nights sleep but the dietician said she wanted us to be up to three meals a day within two weeks. So feeling a little lost and not supported by my dietician.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

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MayfairMummy · 10/02/2016 12:37

Mazzi, we had multiple allergies from very early days. I eliminated a lot from my diet, then i did baby led weaning and found that pretty much anything he wouldn't eat, he was allergic to.

It's not as quick as shoving pureed food in, but it helped us a lot.. may not be for you, though.

However you move forward, i strongly suggest you start food diarying immediately (otherwise you'll kick yourself later), and introduce only one food at a time, every say 2 or 3 days. If your little one is taking time to react, if you're introducing a lot of foods quickly you may not know which ones are causing the issues (eg my son's eardrums will burst 4 days after eating wheat, like clockwork). This is particularly of issue if you have non ige allergies which do not come up on a skinprick test (and often have delayed reactions).

Best of luck!

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Mazzimaz2709 · 11/02/2016 21:12

Thank you for your reply!! We have started a food diary and can already see that night time wind/pain kicks in on day 2... So currently avoiding Apple and baby rice. Tried chicken but she refused it two mornings in a row, and so moved on to carrot which she devoured! I like the idea of letting her explore with BLW and it makes sense that she would naturally avoid something that wouldn't agree with her. Thanks again!

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MayfairMummy · 12/02/2016 17:29

Best of luck with it all.
I think my DS avoided things that gave him immediate reactions because he could feel it in his mouth (his mouth still hurts as a first sign of his ige allergies - if there is, eg dairy contamination in something)... i'm sure babies know a lot that we don't give them credit for!