quick question re: breastfeeding and milk allergy

[OhWhatAPalaver]

we strongly suspect DD (6 mo) is allergic to milk, waiting for referral to allergy clinic at the mo. i'm trying to cut out dairy as she gets eczema and i'm still breastfeeding her so i was wondering - do i need to cut out all dairy or just milk. i'm finding it pretty hard not to have anything at all but keeping it to an absolute minimum. i'm vegetarian anyway but being vegan is pretty damn hard!

Some mums find that they do not need to cut anything out of their diet, but others (like me) find that it makes a vast improvement.

I'd start with cutting down on 'obvious' stuff like milk in drinks, cheese, yoghurt, buttery biscuits and margarine with dairy in it. If after a couple of weeks you do see a difference you might want to start being more rigorous. My DS's eczema was entirely related to traces of his food allergens in my diet, but do bear in mind that this is not the case for everybody.

It is hard to start with but it does get easier I promise. What is it you feel you'll miss?

Im bf a milk allergic baby and Ive cut out all dairy for the same reasons. Its a PITA to start with but now it doesnt cross my mind.

Well apart from my relentless craving for take away pizza....

i miss chocolate and ice cream! i've only been at it about 4 days as well! :o

going to get some decent green and blacks dark for my cravings i think...

i've replaced all milk, yogurts and marge with soya alternatives and bought a load of rich tea biscuits but i do miss the sweet stuff!

Try the free from ranges, we've just discovered morrisons have a fab range. We've found that goats milk is ok and so I can drink it, eat cheese and yogurt etc.

If your Lo is ok with dots, Swedish glace ice cream is pretty good and alpro chocolate puddings are to die for. I was veggie (now eat fish) and DS is dairy intolerant so the dots stuff got me through... We've since discovered he's intolerant of soya too but the free from stuff is pretty good, lazy days chocolate ginger squares are delish.

I found its ok once you get used to it. Oat milk is fine, sunflower pure makes wonderfully short pastry, cakes etc, quorn chunks are dairy free, most of the Asda cheap cakes and biscuits are dairy free.

I'm just about to try some lacto-free cheese. I know DS is not lactose intolerant but I'm hoping that its been sufficiently processed that he might not react to it. However last weeks trial of easiyo yoghurt resulted in 5 days of up to the shoulder explosive nappies (expected for a nb, but not at 8mo!).

Oh, and I never go away without pure, oatmilk and peanut buttter for me and now, bought pots of food for DS because they keep at room temperature so we have them as standbys if other food is inappropriate.

Just a thought, when eczema is involved it is common to be allergic to both cmp and soya. I know this makes things much tougher for you (I remember it well) but just keep an eye on your dd's eczema and other symptoms. and we I did have to give up all foods containing milk, so that includes things like most crisps and checking stock cubes too I'm afraid. It just depends on how sensitive your LO is.

You can eat kinderton dark chocolate. Oatly milk and kara milk are quite good. The oatly chocolate milk is yummy, heat it up and very similar to a normal hot chocolate.

thanks for the food suggestions, i look forward to trying all those!

golemmings - sorry to sound dim but what are dots?

i am hoping DD is not allergic to soya too, that would be a nightmare! i'm trying just cutting dairy first and if that makes no difference then i'll cut out soya too. hopefully we'll have the allergy clinic appointment through soon and we'll know for definite.

You can get dairy free icecream and I swapped posh nougat for chocolate. meringues also good if it is milk allergy only.

Dots is soya. Sorry. Bloody autocorrect. Also fruit pastilles lollies are very nice I learned today.

haha, i thought it might have been a typo! we have yet to determine if she's ok with soya but i'm still eating it for the time being.

Coop ginger biscuits are dairy and soya free. But I have discovered most dark chocolate contains a little soya. However a seems to be getting better with small amounts of soya in my diet even managed an alpro chocolate pudding last week which is fab.

I was going to try yoghurt again this morning but a is snotty again and has a 40 a day cough going on which is likely to do bad things to his nappies so the effects of dairy would be pretty unclear so I need to leave it for a few days. I'd like to do it next week: we see the dietition a week on Tuesday and is like more evidence before then.

Ok, before I start, let's just say I like my food... and have had to be creative as I have been dairy free since Feb and have some way to go as I'm BF my allergic DD:
Chocolate bourbons are dairy free as are tesco value digestives... Vegusto make a range of vegan (non-soya) cheeses which are actually nice to eat - they are made in Switzerland (which I always think was always going to be where they invented an edible dairy free cheese) so if you are desperate for cheese it may be worth a try. That said, they are made from nuts so would probably not be ok for little people and they are pricey but if the cheese cravings get out of control they are a treat. I made a maccaroni cheese that gave me a boost when it all got a bit depressing. They do a runny cheese which is supposed to be nice on pizza. I also tried a dairy free ice cream at the free from show which was absolutely delicious www.bessantanddrury.com/
Co yo yogurt is amazing too www.coyo.co.uk/ and Booja Booja hazelnut crunch truffles would pass for being full of cream although they are very expensive...
Hope that helps keep you going if you end up having to do this for a little while

Mmm cheese. Especially pizza cheese. And yoghurt. Off to Google...

Dd (2.10) won a box of milk tray in a tombola at the weekend so she and DH are eating their body weight in milk choc. He went out yesterday and bought me a box of booja booja truffles. They have soya lecithin in, but all chocolate seems too. Fortunately it doesn't seem to upset DS too much.

I'm going to eat easiyo for breakfast again today to see whether last week's dreadful nappies were a coincidence or an effect...

Just a word of warning, before seeing the dietician with DS2 we were convinced of his milk allergy, so I started cutting out dairy, but when I went in to see dietician she said not to cut it out as the small amounts coming through the milk would help prevent a more serious intolerance forming, and that I may just end up giving myself deficiencies. Obviously not the same for everyone, and DS2 had a milk protein (and soya) intolerance, not an actual allergy. He was put on nutramingen (FF when I'm at work as I can't express enough) and after being given food challenges he is eating loads of types of dairy and slowly building him up to have normal formula (hopefully just go straight to cows milk).

Thanks Rodney. Another friend told me something similar a while ago but by then I'd already given up dairy because the gp I saw refused to medicate for DS's silent reflux. Within 48hrs of my stopping dairy he was a different child; he slept for more than an hour at a time and he didn't scream continually. but I had yoghurt this morning and he seems ok!

Ha! Finally saw the dietitian yesterday. She thinks DS is lactose intolerant not cmpi which is fabulous for me because it puts all the lactose free stuff back into my diet - like lactose free ice cream. Yoghurt is also quite low in lactose, and butter and some cheeses like brie, edam, mozzarella, most hard cheeses and feta. Greek salad and pizza are now on the cards again!

It might be something for you to try, OhWhat. I had an inking that might be the case, although I was advised on mn that lactose intolerance in babies is really rare. That's bollx according to the dietitian; she used to see loads of cases of lactose intolerance and its only recently been cmpi issues that have dominated. I tried drinking lactose free formula a while ago and he was fine with it. I thought it was utterly vile though. Not given it to him directly yet and I've delayed my return to work to when he is 12mo so hopefully I can avoid using formula at all.

If a baby is truly lactose intolerant, he/she can't tolerate breast milk either so it doesn't make any difference whether or not mum consumes lactose or not, as lactose is the primary carbohydrate in breast milk. Babies with lactose intolerance can only tolerate lactose free formula. And so I'm afraid your dietician is wrong golemmings as lactose intolerance in babies is extremely rare (quite common in adults though). Cow's milk protein intolerance and allergy are quite common in babies though and as long as mum cuts out dairy from her diet, breastfeeding is the best option.

Freefrommum is right. That's how the paediatrician knew my baby had cmpi and not lactose intolerance. OhWhatAPlaver just think youare slightly better off, if you can still have eggs. I know a milk allergic vegan through Twitter, who blogs. If you google 'sugarpuffish' you might find her blog. She really concentrates on natural beauty but does mention food stuff from time to time. If you contact her, I'm sure she'd be happy to help.

Hi OP,
I' m a little late replying and you have had lots of advice, but just wanted to share my story.

My DD is 2.3 and is still very occasionally breastfed. She was EBF from bith until we introduced solids and was never given formula so breastmilk was her main milk source.

My DD is allergic to cows milk, eggs and nuts.

My DD has suffered from milk eczema from 9 months, mainly on her chin.

I was never encouraged by our consultant to cut out all dairy. When my DD was 8 weeks old and I began to see a link between my dairy consumption and her being violently sick, I chose to cut out large quantities of raw dairy and replace cows milk with soya in my diet for things like cereal. I continued to have splashes of milk in tea/coffee, milk in sauces etc and cooked dairy in food. I also continued to use a dairy based spread. When my DD was diagnosed as being CMP allergic at 6 months old our consultant said that I should continue with what I had been doing and not cut out dairy as this was working for us. Some babies, however, cannot tolerate their mums having any dairy so it really depends on your baby.

How bad is her eczema?

hi again, i've just caught up with this thread!

i was doing well with the cutting back dairy thing until this week. first of all DD got tonsillitis really badly so we were in A&E and i was starving and ate a cheese butty. then I got tonsillitis and i'm still struggling to eat anything other than ice cream, yogurt and porridge! cos of all the stress i've basically had to start eating some dairy again, but still no milk and only had two real yogurts.

i have noticed an improvement with DD being sick all the time, but then they do grow out of that anyway so it's hard to tell if it's related to me not eating dairy, i guess i'll see in the next few days! her eczema is still bad though but i think it's worse at the mo anyway cos she's on antibiotics for her tonsillitis.

my OH and my mum are both telling me i'm being silly and shouldn't cut out dairy entirely. i think it's pretty damn time consuming to be completely dairy free anyway so i'm just doing the best i can until we know for definite. we have the allergy clinic appointment on 23rd aug so a bit of a wait yet.

thanks for everyone's advice, i have been finding the odd dairy free gem along the way, like fry's chocolate cream bars :) very tasty!

Oh are fry's chocolate cream bars dairy free? I love them! Haven't had one for years I'll need to look for one tomorrow!

yeah, i was surprised to find that they are! they do say MAY contain milk, soya etc but if you look at the actual ingredients there's nothing in there. the peppermint ones are my fave :)