Dairy free diet suggestions?

[AngelDog]

We're seeing the GP about 13 m.o. DS's facial eczema which has been going on since at least 8 months (possibly a bit longer). I'm hoping to get a referral to the eczema nurse at the hospital as it is continually red & inflamed despite steroids, antibiotics and anti-fungal cream.

Having read a bit about dietary triggers I want to try to cut out dairy from his/my diet to see if it makes a difference. He's bf, and I want to do it now while he still has lots of feeds a day, so I know he's getting enough calcium etc.

What sort of things do you give instead? DS is a bit of a fussy eater: he's not very keen on vegetables, and tomatoes / citrus / hazelnut butter have all irritated his face so I need to steer clear of those. He loves fruit, meat and pasta. At the moment, most of his snacks involve cheese of some kind.

You can buy Lactofree cheese and milk - that may help.

For snacks at that age I used to give rice or corn wafers with marmite, bread or crackers with hummus, bread sticks, homemade healthy-ish cakes/biscuits, carrot sticks, fruit etc.

We rely hugely on tomatoes for pasta sauces etc but at that age DS1 often just had plain pasta/couscous/rice with some olive oil and then chopped up steak or ham or whatever separately.

Hummus, breadsticks, ricecakes, chunky veg and fruit, cold meats, cold fish fingers, soya yogurts/puddings, home-made cakes.

Bourbon cream biscuits are almost always dairy-free

Two of my dc and I were strictly df for 18m. It made a huge difference to my dc - cleared up their facial eczema - but had absolutely no effect on me.

I found it easy to manage as long as I was cooking from scratch, but it was a hassle for any convenience foods.

I know you're not vegan but I found "feeding your vegan infant with condfidence" by sandra Hood useful (we're veggie but I cut out dairy as well for a year due to eczema).

Lactofree won't be any good for a dairy intolerance, as itsusually the casein (dairy protein) that's the problem, not the lactose (dairy sugar).

My DS2 is dairy intolerant he has amongst other things;

Soya milk to drink and on his cereal/cooked items
soya yoghurts
alpro soya vanilla 'custard' pots
sardines (for the calcium)
baked beans (also good for calcium)

I have a list somewhere from dietitian so can check for other things if you like.

for snacks he is fond of

boubon biscuits (they tend to be dairy free)
rich tea buscuits
banana
Pure margarine (availabile from most supermarkets)
homemade cakes using pure and soya milk as necessary

TBH he tends to eat what we are eating. Obviously some things have to be adapted a bit. For example his homemade pizza has no cheese on it but he has the sauce, meat and veggies, pineapple. Whereas the rest of us get the grated cheese too. I make mash with soya milk and pure marg for all of us.

he doesn't snack on pure margarine btw, it just came into my mind as I was writing the snack list.

oh yes dried fruits

pouches of fruit pure (he loves those!)

Oh and once he was dairy free his exzema cleared up and he now rarely has any on his skin.

We found rice milk (the organic one as it's not loaded with sugar and extras) to be a nice substitute as a drink and over cereal.

Snacks ds loves are:

Carrot sticks
Fruit slices
Nuts, seeds & dried fruit mix (make it yourself and leave in a pot so they can help themselves-not salted nuts)
Banana ice-cream (chop 2-3 bananas, freeze for as long as you like (at least 2hrs) then blend with rice milk & honey (sounds gross but both ds and dh love it)-obviously a pud and not a snack
We also buy a lot of ground almonds and mix it with Kallo Organic puffed rice cereal, popping corn (popped obviously) and honey to bake into snack bars (add seeds & dried fruit if you like)
Popping corn: popped and add honey & sunflower seeds

Hope that helps

Thanks, everyone - some great ideas (and thanks, PC for explaining about lactose - I'd suspected that was the case).

I've got some Oatly oat milk today so I can use it in cooking - I think that'll make life easier as I can perhaps do some mini-quiches or something eggy to take out & about.

I'm trying to avoid soya for the time being as I know quite some children who are intolerant to dairy can be intolerant to soya too.

whethergirl, thanks for the vegan suggestion - that hadn't occurred to me. I'll have a look in the library today. We normally aim to eat vegetarian food a few times a week.

DS normally eats the same as us (we did BLW) but is frustratingly picky and at the moment isn't receptive to veg / fish / beans / potatoes, which rules out about 75% of our diet once you've taken out the tomatoes and dairy which we normally eat a LOT. So far we've avoided giving him anything sweet other than fruit. I'm beginning to feel that something is going to have to give.

We're less than 36 hours into being dairy free and I'm already missing my cups of tea. It's good to hear of others who've found df helped, though. :)

Our daughter has eczema, triggered by allergies to dairy and soya. Our story is on facebook in a group I created called Dairy Allergy - Derbyshire. We have seen dermatologist and dietician, hoping to start oral immunotherapy in next couple of months, She is dairy free (Iuse oatly oatmilk and oat cream as alternatives to dairy, but obviously soya is a good alternative as long as child isn't allergic to that too, (which can be common in dairy allergy). Re:Application of topical steroid, advice from specialist nurses very different to that received from the GP.

I have a group page on Facebook - Dairy Allergy - Derbyshire with our story. Our daughter has eczema triggered by allergies to dairy and soya.

Interesting that the GP advice was different from the specialist nurse, Micron. What was the difference in the advice?