Suggestions for milk free breakfast and puddings

[dannid]

Hi all, DS2 is 8mths and has a cows milk intollerance. He has been weaning well till now but seems to be getting bored with the limited options for breakfast and pudding. Up until recently he has been alternating between jammy toast (with soya butter) and sunny start banana porridge (made with water instead of milk) each morning but seems to be thoroughly fed up with both now. I did try giving him some rice crispies with his formula on (nutramigen) but he wasn't particularly impressed! Puddings seem to alternate between various fruit purree (which he seems to hate) and alpro soya puddings (which he loves!!). The only fruit he has actually liked so far is bananas...but there is obviously only so much banana a person can eat. Just wondering if anyone can suggest some alternatives that we could try???? Thanks! :)

Scrambled egg? Made with lacto free milk?

Pudding wise... Could you make some carrot/apple/bran muffins?
Rice cakes for finger food?
Make a smoothie with banana, strawbs, and lacto free yoghurt and milk?

WACKY CAKE

Thanks! Yep scrambled eggs defo on the the to try list...had been putting off as was worried we might uncover an egg allergy (also seems to run in family!) but he had some egg noodles the other day and was fine!!
That choccy cake looks scrummy...thanks for that...think I have all the ingredients here too so may have to give that a go this afternoon...although I am renowned by DS1 and DH as a terrible cook!! Will see how I get on!! Also like the idea of muffins!!

A good cereal is Ready Brek (or cheaper supermarket version), as it is strongly fortified with calcium. You can make with his formula or any milk alternative that you are using. Mine love it, you can add some pure fruit jam or fruit to the top to flavour. I used to cook up and puree dried apricots / prunes and keep in a jar in the fridge, keeps forever and good for iron. Nowadays they are older and I just use jam.

For puddings, try making rice pudding or semolina with formula / milk alternative (oat milk?) We can't have lacto-free as DS allergic to milk, so I don't know if OK for you if your DS is intolerant rather than allergic.

Alpro custard and cream are both great, and Oatly do a cream too. Jelly is an option but not very nutritious. Could try fruit crumbles with lots of custard to help them go down, or mixing the fruit puree with custard. You can also get Alpro yoghurts as well as the puddings.

Have the piriton ready for the scrambled eggs, in case of allergy, as sometimes they can be OK with it in say noodles but not when pure / any raw bits.

The tesco ready brek that we have for DS1 has milk in it so assumed that they all would ...will have to have a look when next in the supermarket then!!! Crumble sounds good too...although without sounding too lazy I was hoping to find some things I could just buy as will be returning to work in a month or so and am not sure I will have time to be doing much baking.

Good to know about the eggs too...I keep meaning to try him with it but it always seem that we have something going on and it wouldn't be a "good" time for him to react to something! Gonna get my sister-in-law to be's hen weekend out the way this week and then may try next week when we have nothing major going on!!

Sains ready brek (instant oats) is OK I'm sure. I do that too with waiting for a good time - never seems a good time to have a reaction! I go for a saturady lunch when there are two parents around to cope and the rest of theday to check for delayed reactions!
Yep, the off the shelf milk free pudding options are limited - various baby fruit purees, the soya yoghurts and puddings, jellies, custard (which my two will just eat on its own!). Mine often have cereal & milk for a pudding - cheerios went down well when they were little. At 8mo you could try mixing banana with a little yoghurt and freezing to make 'ice cream' cubes - comes out rock hard but ok if you let thaw a bit.

Try mashing banana with avocado for a really nutritious pudding - full of 'good' fat, really important for babies on a dairy-free diet. Weetabix, Oatibix or Oatiflakes for breakfast? We also use Morrison's Instant Hot Oats as it has added calcium. Not sure what to suggest on the fruit front - don't think I've come across a baby that won't eat fruit puree! Have you tried doing a mixture of fruit and veg puree instead? I'm sure the Annabel Carmel books have some good ideas for mixing fruit and veg in purees. Just though it might get him used to the taste.

I would also suggest a little caution when introducing scrambled egg. Start by just rubbing a bit on his cheek and leaving it for a while before putting a bit on his lip and as long as he doesn't have any reaction then try feeding him some.

I stir some cocoa powder into my porridge and it's all chocolatey. Would that work?
Sometimes I add apple and sultanas to the porridge too.

It's easy enough to make dairy free biscuits for puddings - just use a dairy free marge instead of butter, and use dark chocolate for chocolate chips.

Can't you use some other type of milk? I use soya milk a lot for anything other than drinking it straight. It's great in smoothies, and I also use it for cooking wherever milk is required - even for something like pancakes or pikelets.

Some people also use goats' milk (though I think that has quite a strong goaty taste) or rice milk.

DS was dairy free until 13 months, it's a while ago now but I'll see what I can remember! Breakfast standard was porridge with normal oats and water but different extras. favourites were ripe mango whizzed up (goes kind of runny) with cinemon (my favourite as well as DS!). Sultanas (soak for a minute or two whilst making the porridge then whizz in a mini whizzy blender thing and it goes into a sticky mush, lovely mixed with porridge, cinemon goes well with this too, or all three together. Stewed apples, and or plums. chopped fresh strawberries. mashed banana.
Otherwise toast or scrambled egg.

Deserts were mostly fruit. Banana and avacado mixed together was always a hit. Toast and peanut butter too (yes, for pudding, so long as it wasn't main course aswell!). Rice cakes or toast with fruit spread. Health food shops usualy sell fruit concentrate spread which is pure fruit, we had an apple and pear one, and something else I can't remember. They're very sweet but not refined sugar like jam. Also works in porridge!

Tea cakes (but check for milk and eggs) for either breakfast or pudding.

Bourbon biscuits don't have milk in (though I didn't feed them to DS )

Dd is egg and dairy free. For breakfast she has readybrek made with Oatly, I add a bit of fruit purée to it. I try to vary the fruit so she doesn't get bored!

Pudding is usually alpro soya yoghurt, it's in the fridge section so not the alpro desserts that are with the freefrom foods. Tescos also do their own soya yoghurt that I sometimes buy.

Have you tried fingers of fruit as well as purée? My dd loves mango and pineapple cut into 'sticks'. Or orange segments, I tend to tear the skin a bit and she sucks out the middle and chucks the skin on the floor

In a vague attempt to make jelly more nutritious I make it with Tropicana calcium fortified orange juice (which has as much calcium in as milk) instead of water and add some frozen berries. It is full of sugar though. Rice pudding made with coconut/soya/oat milk not bad.

And pancakes made with oat milk will do for either breakfast or pudding, I make mini ones and for ages my son was happy to eat them plain but he has now cottoned on that everyone else has toppings so I put a bit of jam on them.

Wow thanks everyone. some great ideas to try here. I made the Wacky Cake yesterday and DS2 had the biggest smile on his face...I covered with butter icing (made with soya butter) and dairy free choccy buttons!!! Even impressed myself and it was a hit with DS1 and DH too!! Yay! He seems to love Bananas but we haven't tried with avocado...so think that will be next on my list. I wasn't sure about using other milks...when we saw the dietician she just suggested using his nutramigen formula to cook with. I did try this with a cheese sauce and it was the worst thing I have ever tasted :(

We have Ella's kitchen fruity porridge or the boots one mixed with puréed fruit and a bit of formula or French toast with apple and blueberry purée (it goes thick kinda jelly like). He loves them but I need to find new stuff too!

For desserts he still normally just has fruit, he loves frozen mango or mango and pineapple! (so do I yums)!

Breakfast can be a pain. We made eggy bread for brekkie for a while ('til Baby got bored). Then it was egg and soldiers for a bit. Now she's on to grilled fish fingers and hash browns.

When younger she would have fruit purée as a dessert but we don't' normally do puddings. But meringue nests are dairy free - just top with fruit. Supermarkets sometimes sell little ready made sticky toffee puddings in the Free From aisle, alongside the custard!

Oh! Just remembered! banana custard -v quick and easy peasy. Make/heat up some custard cut up banana, stir in and grate some choc over the top. Bingo!

Soy yoghurt and soy or rice milk - especially great when combined with weetabix. The joy of weetabix is that a) they can be spread with fruit puree before adding liquid and b) you can choose how soggy/crunchy you let them get. So perfect for weaning :)

Alpro custard and alpro cream are both brilliant for adding to things (and when he's a bit older they make great pots of vanilla and chocolate dessert, too).

OOh, interesting thread. I'd been wary of using soy as I heard it can be an equally common allergen - is that not the case?

The dietician recommended Calcium fortified Oatly to us when we were weaning. We grew out of the intolerance, but my memories are:
Breakfasts
toast! vary the breads tho - crumpets are usually milk free. Also english muffins.
Or Normal porridge oats, made up with water and fruit purées / jam / raisins, or made up with oatly.

Puddings
I enjoy cooking, so these may not appeal
Birds custard powder (in the TIN - not the packets), made up with oatly, and no sugar. Add cocoa powder for chocolate custard, or bananas, or other fruit.
I also made up Jelly with oatly as the liquid.
Home made cake, as you've discovered! If you make them up as fairy cakes, then freeze them, they defrost very well.
Crumbles / fruit pies. With Custard!
Bananas cook very well - either wrapped in foil, and put in the oven (still in skins), even better if you split the skin and stuff a row of chocolate buttons in, but not sure how dairy free chocolate melts, or sliced and fried in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.
Krispie cakes - melt butter substitute and syrup, stir in cocoa and icing sugar. Mix with rice krispies (or cornflakes, or crushed shredded wheat), and put in small cake cases.

Hope that gets you started. If your prepared to cook and freeze, lots of normal puddings can be made with dairy free alternatives.

Good luck - we struggled to get enough calories in my LO, so were always adding sugar, fat and oils (e.g. avocado, oily fish) to meals!

DD's favourite at that age was wheetabix soaked in orange juice with a mashed up banana. Looks disgusting but is quick, sweet, cheep and healthy.