Milk ladder woes

[Mawsymoo]

DS2 had just turned 1 and we're having a second go at the milk ladder. We tried at 9 months and the quarter of a malted milk biscuit had him up all night crying and farting. I gave him a little corner of a biscuit yesterday morning and he was fine all day, slept through the night and is generally happy. He has smelly farts today but that could be anything!

However he's absolutely refusing to let so much as a crumb of biscuit pass his lips today. He's just not into biscuits or cakes (I made a lovely dairy-free cake for his birthday and he acted like it was poison!). Are there any alternatives to the biscuit/cake steps of the ladder?

This is not a stealth boast by the way - DS1 would happily survive solely on biscuits and cake, as would I, so DS2 is an anomaly!

My dd doesn't seem to like the texture of a lot of the muffins and pancakes on the ladder. Some people suggest crumbling it up into df yogurt. I ended up skipping stages, not ideal.

There are alternative ladders out there- you can have bread at stage 3 and cheesy breadsticks instead of pancakes for example.

Thanks I'll have a look for some alternative ladders.

Well the title turned out to be accurate - milk ladder woes indeed!

As I said I gave him a tiny corner of a malted milk biscuit 2 days ago. Yesterday he was in a good mood but as the day progressed he got more and more gassy. He slept through the night but from when he woke this morning he has had non-stop diarrhoea and vomiting. I'm so upset that I've put him through this and also anxious about how long this will go on as when he got accidental exposure a few months ago he was sick for 2 weeks and ended up in hospital for fluids

The dietician has said to wait 6 months now before the next challenge. I'm going to start getting my head around the fact that this is going to be a longer term thing.

I'll tell you what I did it does however have no bearing on anything you should decide to do.

I did this with dd2. From about 13m onwards. And tbh I got so sick of trying to work out of she was just being a toddler and crying over anything and everything or whether the milk was affecting her.

On the end after 2 attempts I decided to forget the whole thing. She was happy and healthy and eating well and that cows milk was not so vital that it was worth making her I'll over just fir a sodding pancake.

We decided to leave it til she could properly tell me if she was hurting and figured there would possibly be enough accidental exposure to not he a totally alien substance to her body.

By 3 yrs old she was fine .

There are so many alternatives now and cows milk is not vital. It just seemed daft to put her through it

Similar to that, my dd failed step 1 at 1 and I tried a few more times but just am lazy and can't be bothered with it. I also hate the amount of sugar on the ladder so at 19 months I've just taken her off all dairy. TBH I think it's a healthier diet but I do still bf a bit

Hate the milk ladder. My ds was do cmpi at 16 days old. We have done milk ladder numerous times. The furthest we have got is day 4 (in total a 1/4 of a malted milk). For ds it causes constipation and a bloated belly. He always get hives too after he finally poos with the help of movicol.

Thanks for the experiences. We're under the care of a community dietician (not in the uk) who is very strong on how important it is to induce tolerance and not just "leave" him on a dairy-free diet. I feel in my heart he won't be ready in 6 months when he's still having such a strong reaction now so I'll take your experiences on board.

I haven't tried him with soya yogurts yet but he's had soya in small levels in food without issue - I'd like to try him with that as it would open up new options for us. He's starting to want what his older brother has and I can just see it getting worse! I'm starting to think about a more long-term future without dairy now

Has she said medically why she feels it's so important?

Cos fir me the ability to feed processed crap without thinking about it and to get a person off the expensive prescription milks was not a good enough reason.

What did she say was so wrong with leaving him dairy free?

Here the milks are expensive and Dr's don't like giving them so can definitely see the whole thing being for their benefit more than the child's

We've seen some of the top consultants in the UK and the belief is that leaving them completely dairy-free is more likely to result in a long-term allergy. Saying that, it's a balancing act and starting the ladder too soon can be a bad move, so we were advised to try it every six months and see if the first step was tolerated.

We're part way up with DD, at a different stage with DS and not having any success with egg for DD. It's frustrating!

We are still under a dietitian for DS's dairy allergy. We tried starting the ladder a few times with bad results until she said "look, it's really not important. Let him have a childhood in which he feels good and can get on with being a kid." So we stopped, then at 4 we started the desensitisation programme - that's literally just a crumb of digestive biscuit per day sprinkled on toast or in anything really. He was on that for months and now at 4 1/2 we are going to move to two crumbs. The goal is half a biscuit by the time he is five.
It sounds like your dietitian is going quite fast?

That's interesting...my dietitian never mentioned that and was perfectly happy fir me to leave it. Said whatever I was doing was obviously working as she was/is happy and healthy and as I only cooked one meal for us all the removal of fairy from dds diet improved her health immensely and her eczema is no where near as bad.

Agree re balancing act though. There's never a good time to do it really is there. As a baby/toddler it can put them.off food for long periods of time if they react to something.

On the flip side though fir me I felt the probability of accidental exposure (stealing siblings food or legging it off at a party with a chocolate finger ) to maintain "exposure"

Although I would like to know how a baby who's never had milk or chocolate due to intolerance can still know that a chocolate santa is a chocolate santa and eat one off the tree

Ps it seems the programme may be working - he was accidentally exposed to dairy after a few months of this and his reaction was nothing like as bad as it would have been six months previously.

Yes the dietician is very keen on challenging him as she said it would reduce the risk of a long term allergy. We're under a consultant paediatrician too and he is of the same opinion.

I'm afraid I'm paying for the bloody expensive milk so it's not the health services trying to save a few quid!

He's in a bad way today - diarrhoea and vomiting still, refusing food and very miserable. DH is with him today and I've booked tomorrow off - we're already using up a big chunk of annual leave and it's only January

Can I just ask why you're paying for his formula? He should be getting it on prescription surely?

I'm not in the UK! It is on prescription but we have to pay for our medicines here.

If he's one could he not go onto a milk alternative as opposed to formula?

Dd was 13m when we were told she could either go onto alpro 1+ or Koko which were both available in supermarkets.

Would it be possible to call and find out if there is? If the cost is eliminated then it takes the pressure off you all a bit

I actually spoke with the dietician this afternoon and we're going to try to introduce soya once he's better. If so then hopefully we'll be able to change to the fortified soya milks which would be amazing! I actually didn't even know that would be an option it was only when I asked about soya yogurts she mentioned it. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed he's not allergic to soya now!

I had a look in the supermarket tonight and I noticed there's an Alpro1-3 milk on the shelf and a more expensive one in the fridge. Is there a quality or taste difference between them?

No idea

We used the regular one off the shelf and that was fine.