8 month old with eczema (dairy, I think) Want to stop breastfeeding. Help

[MommyD]

ds3 is 8 months old and is exclusively breastfed. I have dropped down to feeding him only morning and night. I am trying everything to get him to take a milk substitute. He is allergic to cow's milk, he's tried rice milk (probably not a good idea), tried soya milk (yuk - not surprised he spits it out). What else can I try? I am worried he is not getting calcium. He doesn't eat youghurts and cheese (for obvious reasons) He drinks some dilute apple juice in the day, but nowt else (he spits water out)

Does he have to have milk at 8 months? I want to drop the two breastfeeds that he is having, but am wondering if that would be irresponsible, given we have not found a milk substitute.

What would YOU do?

Is it a big problem breastfeeding morning and night? Could you manage to carry on til he's a year? You've done so well up til now

babies are supposed to have a minimum of 20 fluid oz milk until 12 months old. Have you persevered with the soya? or there are dairy free formulas available on precsription such as nutramigen which your GP could recommend.

Could you get some alternative milk/formula prescribed by your GP? I know they taste horrible but are definitively more nutritious than alternative milks that were not designed with babies' needs in mind.

In the commercial front, you can get Rice Dream which tastes OK (but check is the Enriched with Calcium version as the flavoured ones and original don't have it) Same goes for Provamel. I would avoid soya for a bit longer.

Broccoli (paticularly the stems) have lots of calcium, so that may be an option.

However, I wouldn't go down the milk substitutes route unless you are positively sure your DS is allergic and you have got advice from a medical practitioner. Milk is still very important at your DS's age

Genuine question - why do you want to stop b/f?

Have you dropped dairy from your own diet. my friend did when breastfeeding and it heped her ds's eczema.

Forgot to add, at this age the grease intake is very important, if you opt for alternative milks (rice, soya, oats, etc) be aware he will need to get more grease in his diet in other ways, a dietitian asked us to add oil to DS's rice milk and he is three yrs old!, I don't think is a good idea to experiment with these things on a baby unless you have talk about them with a doctor/dietitian/allergician.

Hi, just wanted to say that my DS2 had v bad exzema when he was little. I put him on goats milk, and it seemed to improve.

during the next year and a bit, I tried to change back to cow's milk on 3 separate times, each time his eczema got worse (weeping, itchy, etc)after a few days.

Sorry, I don't know enough about milk allergies to know whether your DS3 will be allergic to goats milk too, if he's allergic to cows.....just trying to suggest an alternative!

I've also seen something advertised in a Waitrose magazine that was something like oat milk (?!!). Am sure I have remembered that wrongly, but maybe someone has a recent magazine and can be more helpful ?

Soya milk, rice milk, oat milk - none of these are suitable as an infant food (and milk is a food until 12 months). They are fine to give as a drink (probably better some calcium, but nutritionally it would be like giving a formula fed baby skimmed milk.