Help! DS3 (16 months) has been advised to go dairy-free. What can I feed him?

[StuntNun]

DS3 was diagnosed as egg-intolerant at six months so I am well used to reading labels and being vigilant with what he eats. However dairy-free is a new one for me so I would really appreciate any tips on suitable dairy-free foods for a 16-month-old. I've noticed the dairy-free range in supermarkets quite often contain egg products.

flouncy
Gravy from a roast (very pale with poultry and pork - benefits from a little gravel browning, if thats allergen free).
Cook meat as normal. Take meat and potatoes out of the roasting tin, and put tin on the hob. Sprinkle in enough flour, stirring til it looks like a paste. Add in some water (from draining the veg?) and stir til boiling. Add more water/wine if required to get pouring constancy. Add gravy browning if desired.
Try with beef or lamb first.

Hmmmm. I think I'll stick to bisto for my beef gravy :) browning seems to just contain glucose syrup, salt and colouring?

He seems to be better without the Pepti milk than he was with it.

Hello stuntnun!

My DCs are dairy and gluten free - they eat eggs - but hopefully the following helps anyway as most recipes are adaptable.

Breakfast could be egg free pancakes - you can make in batches. They work ok using olive oil and rice milk to bind them. Serve with nut butter (almond nut good for calcium).

Avoid soy - soy and dairy/egg allergies often go together. Soy is nasty stuff.?

You can get coconut yoghurts though.

Chicken drumsticks/chopped veg for lunch. Snacks - most of the organix stuff is egg/dairy free. Or could make your own flapjack using coconut oil. Oatcakes with hummous is another good one.

For treats the free from aisles are fab but most is high sugar. The village bakery stuff is slightly healthier though.

Dairy free/egg free dinner - meat/rice/veg etc. you can make your own (cheese free) pesto really easily. I make pesto using kale (Blanche it first) as it is calcium rich.

HTH. See you on JM :)

Oh meant to add - would DS eat tinned sardine? Weirdly my kids love it and the little crunchy bones have calcium in too

Thanks DaddyPig I love sardines so that would be a good thing to try. After another two bad nights I have ditched the Pepti and decided to re-lactate.

Stunt, can you keep to the restricted diet? Just put him on Koko or something, please.

Stunt, relactate by all means, but you must exclude dairy incl traces, egg, soya in order to be fair to your boy. At his age he does not need formula. I am ditching Js Nutrimigen today as I think it is hurting him. They will be fine.

I'm not going to be able to cut out butter but I've cut all other dairy. I'm hoping since butter is predominantly fat it won't cause issues but if it does then I'll have to stop bf again. Koko in tea tastes worse than black tea so I'm going to switch to coffee for my caffeine fix ten cut it out gradually. I've gone cold turkey on caffeine before and the withdrawal was horrendous.

Butter is still dairy whichever way oh look at it. Please just put him on an alternative. Poor wee boy will be so very confused.

Pure spread is a decent butter substitute - contains no dairy at all unlike many spreads.

Tea with lemon? Oat or almond milk (these are sweetish though)?

How will he cope with the caffeine increase?

Hey stuntnun - sorry if you have mentioned this but is DS allergic to dairy or is it intolerance etc? I ask only because even butter causes my DD problems - but her intolerance (rather than allergy) manifests itself in ear problems.

If you clarify the butter to make ghee, it's often better tolerated. (You can google the instructions - it's actually dead easy :) )

If DS has reflux then caffeine caused my DD's reflux to become horrendous.

I make my own almond milk - it's not sweet and again has the calcium. It's nice in tea!

Valium :) :)

Almonds have lovely nipples don't you know

Ooh! daddy pig!

I have Pure, Mini thanks for the tip.

I'm not increasing caffeine VQ, I'm switching from two big cups of tea a day to one cup of coffee for a few days then I'll either switch to decaf or just avoid coffee for the foreseeable future. It's just so I don't get caffeine withdrawal.

DaddyPig great idea, I have ghee. The problem is I don't know whether he has CMPI or temporary lactose intolerance or both or neither. All I know is he has evident stomach pains (you can hear his tummy gurgling as he screams in the middle of the night), distress during the day, constant diarrhoea and he definitely had an egg intolerance although it may have resolved by now (but there's no way to check as we have no good baseline to compare symptoms against). The GP advised going dairy-free but then prescribed Pepti formula which seemed to work temporarily then things got bad again after a couple of days. So cutting dairy, lactose and soy seems to be a sensible approach in the first instance. I have bought lactase drops for breastfeeding and I'll see how it goes but I will stop if it still seems to be causing problems. Basically I'm just flailing around in the dark trying to find something that will help him.

Gah Sainsburys Free From bread has egg in it! Seriously who puts egg in bread?

Sainsburys clearly

Stunt, you really have to check every label, even stuff you would not dream would be a problem. It is annoying, but will be so worth it if it gives you and J some peace.

I hadn't even got as far as ordering it, I was checking their website but can't find a soya-free bread. Back to Tesco for me.

I think our Warburtons 50/50 is soya free? It's definitely milk and egg free

Have you considered cutting out all dairy. I'd think butter would be a very silly idea if you do relactate, it really needs to be all or nothing. No point cutting everything else and still having butter! The pure spread is actually OK, we all use it here!

I'm on a high fat diet Flouncy so butter would be difficult to avoid however ghee might be a good substitute.

Just to say I am trying dairy free at the moment to see if it helps DS2, who is ebf and struggling with terrible wind at night. Have. Been trying a few different milks and found oat works best in tea, whereas almond ( I like the alpro lightly roasted one best) is better in coffee.

Stunt - is there a particular fat you need in your diet? 'cause pure and the other marge will also be high fat (as long as you don't get a low fat variant!). Just different fats to dairy fat.