Weaning with allergies

[Herbiefriel]

Hi,

Ds is 6.5mo, discovered he was allergic to milk after he broke out in hives on contact when having some in cereal for the first time. So, I took him to the doctor who was concerned, but admitted she's not that up to date on current advice on babies, weaning and allergy, so she has referred us to a dietician and says it may be around 10 weeks. She advised avoiding all common allergens for the time being, but didn't say what that included, other than agreeing egg. Previous to that, he had tried all sorts, and been fine...loads of veg, fruit, lamb, chicken, bread. No concerns, other than constant head to toe eczema. His brother had the same, and reflux, and I was so sure of cmpa with him that I cut out dairy, egg, soy, but with no improvement, and he weaned with no problems in the end. So I assumed his brother was the same.

He's been exclusives breastfed, I've cut out dairy and eggs for the last two weeks now, and his skin and sleep has improved a lot, though not completely. Now I gave him peanut butter on bread for lunch, and he came up in hives, I've been on edge all afternoon. He's had peanut butter several times and been fine, before his milk reaction. Now I'm anxious about everything, what I eat and him. We have no experience of allergies ourselves, none on either side of the family.

I don't know what I'm asking. It just seems a long wait to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about, probably 2 months before the dietician appointment, and I don't know what I should give him, and as I'm breastfeeding, what I should eat myself. Cutting out dairy made a big difference. Should I cut out nuts now? Should I worry about wheat, oats... I live off oats now. Will he suffer missing out on so much/having a limited diet until 8months?

So many questions, and he's kicking off so rushing this. Sorry. Hope it makes swns

I'm just nervous about everything now. Should I strip weaning right back to basics and go on complete exclusion diet? Get his eczema completely under control, then try individual things? I'm just concerned about doing that without advice. And what do I feed him? Two months just seems a long wait with no advice at all, with mine and his diet being in question,l.

Hi Herbie,
Peanuts are legummes rather than a nut. In honesty if he was mine I would stick with what you have used and know to be safe whilst waiting to see the dietician. From experience if the GP thought you had a urgent need to be seen for very severe reactions you would be seen ASAP in the same week. Try and breathe just a bit if you can.

Its not a heap of fun weaning a kid on a total exclusion diet and its certainly not a diet to begin let alone use without regular and frequent oversight from a peadiatric dietician. Keep a food diary and note down if you have any concerns. If you get a fast reaction that causes hives, blisters or similar take a photo to show to the the dietician. Just in case if you do get a more severe reaction head for A&E. That could indicate a potential IgE protein allergy that needs further investigation.

My youngest son has IgE allergies. I had to avoid all peanuts, all nuts especially coconut derivatives in any form like shampoo and soap, eggs, milk and fish. Whilst peanuts were dreadful and caused him anaphylaxis he could cope with one soy based infant formula. Go figure but it does prove that a reaction to one specific food does not mean all foods in a group are an issue. He could not cope with soy yogurt but could with home-made soy formula icecream. He spent the first three years of his life living on the following hospital diet of organic chicken [he reacted badly to minute amounts of fish from fish meal fed chicken] , farm sourced organic lamb [£££ and ouch!] apples, broccalli, carrots, rice and the occasional piece of banana. Try making food fun for a young child with only that. I had to keep records of what he did eat just to make sure he was not becomming malnurished on such an incredibly limited diet. You have no idea of how happy I was when at 18 months old he could cope with Allison wholemeal bread [contains soy flour] It meant he could finally have plain toast. Once he was three the hospital organised MDU food challenge tests for each new food that was s-l-o-w-l-y introduced.