Dairy reintroduction - 2 year old

[Doboopedoo]

DD is 2.2 years old, was diagnosed with CMPA at nine months old. Her main symptoms were eczema on her body and horrible diarrhoea, along with not being keen to be in her stomach and she was never a particularly happy or settled baby up until then.

We have been reintroducing milk along the milk ladder over last few weeks, predominantly in food. I just can't decide if it's going well - her usual eczema on body is staying really clear, and there's been no diarrhoea. She says no to tummy aches (but her speech isn't too great yet).

However, she has red spots on her cheeks that won't clear up, her night sleep is messed up (goes down fine but demands into our bed through the night - we have never co-slept before but I work full time so easiest option!), she has dark circles under her eyes, and her tantrums are off the scale ridiculous on a daily basis. However, I know she's also only 2 and her speech is developing massively.

I'm tempted to stop and see if this helps her behaviour and sleep, but don't want to go backwards if it's just a toddler phase. Anyone thing this sounds like she's reacting but just in a different way from before?

My cmpa 2 year old goes like this on the ladder. I'd pull back for a week and then reintroduce and see what happens. It might be you just need to spend a lot longer on each step - maybe a crumb of malted milk for 1 week, then 2 crumbs for a week etc.

Yes, my 5yo STILL has those symptoms if he overdoses on dairy. Especially the behaviour one. We are doing the dairy ladder under the supervision of a dietitian, and it is a ridiculously slow process. After 18months we are on the third rung. But it is going well - so as pp said, it's worth thinking about continuing but slowing right down.

Thanks for the replies, it's helped confirm to me to pull back just now. We are going on holiday in two weeks and I'd rather no tantrums and some sleep - just need to learn how to say no milk in other languages first! 😀 At least I know if we do slip up once or twice there it won't have too big an impact.

It was the sleep I couldn't hack either! For holiday print out some allergy cards in the relevant language. Explaining 'no milk' is so different to 'and all products containing milk protein' - most people I talk to in the uk struggle with that so allergy cards are much simpler when abroad.

Yes - we found we needed to say "no milk, butter or cheese" to cover our bases!

How far have you got with it? Roll back a step?