my 11 month old allergic to milk, ill all the time and not gaining weight

[dollyjack]

Need some advice and generally some sympathy and help here. My 11 month old DS is allergic to milk so I mainly feed him on fruit/veg/ and he has meat and fish too plus milk free cerial in the morning. Since he started nursery in October he has been well for about two weeks. He's had every illness going in fact and now has croup! To add to all this he goes off his food and is rapidly loosing weight. He's so thin it's heartbreaking. He is still breastfed and at the moment and due to the croup, is feeding for most of the night for comfort in the main. I'm really at my wits end as to how to help him gain some weight. I'm sure I want to pull him out of nursary now as I can't bear to see him relapse again when he gets better. We have had our allergy test at clinic and Doc says he can have soya after he's one. Please we need to get him gaining weight soon. Any suggestions welcome! I should say that he's mixed race asian and both my husband and I are pretty small and thin (due to all this illness etc I am now very thin!)

it sounds like you are feeding him the right things. does he eat pasta? I found that to be my saving grace (ds is milk allergic too, and also soya allergic), as you can add meat and veg to it and he will still stuff it.
I hope he gets better soon, then maybe he will feel like eating more.

What are his symptoms, what sort of allergy test did he have? Wondering if this is a true allergy or if it could be secondary to gluten intolerance. Were you prescribed anything like nutramigen or did they just say go on breastfeeding? Breastfeeding should be giving him lots of nutrients but a low allergenic formula like neocate or nutramigen can be mixed with food to give you a break from constant feeding.

Does sound like some more carbs - rice? - might help him gain weight.

Can you ask the doc to prescribe some neocate. Then you can use this to cook and for cereal (or are you expressing additional bm for that?). He could also have it as a drink during the daytime as well as bm.

Have the allergy clinic referred you to a dietician? I saw one with dd and she really helped me to understand what I could give her to give her a balanced diet -

What about eggs - is he ok with them? Bread?

Sounds v stressful - try not to worry too much. Depending on how allergic to soya he is you could just start to introduce it now as he is so close to one - but I'm not sure really how much difference it will make to his diet in terms of calorific gain - dd now has soya yogs, but thats really the only addition to her diet. Trust your instincts on this one.

x -posted with tatt!

I really do sympathise with you here, my DS (17 mths) has had every illness going since he started nursery, including croup and glandular fever! due to this he has not had the chance to thrive and put on weight, i can feel his little ribs when i hug him, it breaks my heart he has been under the hospital since a very bad virus and a stay in hopital and now his consultant thinks he is small for his age and even mentioned dwarfism she wants him to see a specialist. Thankfully he loves his milk and has no allergy to it but i try everything to get him to put on a bit more weight.

I'm hoping all this illness is building up his immune system and one day he will have the constitution of a bear!

i hope your little one starts to thrive soon, it is such a worry i know.

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions and support. Doctor mentioned neocate but felt it was too late to introduce it as his taste buds would be well developed by now and he would refuse it in pref to breast milk. I could express more that's a good suggestion. I was doing it but found it was taking up quite a lot of time that I just didn't have but I'm willing to try anything. Have tried him with pasta but he just gags. He hasn't really moved on from purerred food yet

To up the calories on his pureed food you could maybe add a small slug of olive oil before serving it?

If he can have bread, olive oil is a good and easy alternative to butter, but you can put it on most foods.

Also agree about seeing a dietician, they should be able to help.

It's very worrying isn't it, my DD is dairy allergic and was underweight for a long time, but suddenly turned a corner at about 12 months, about when she really developed an appetite for solids I think. Good luck

oh it is a long hard track you are on, I do symathise. -but you are doing ok, you have figured out what the problem is and you will soon have him thriving. I have two boys who are both completely intolerant to dairy foods and all related 'cow', including any processed beef. oh such fun. you'll find quite a lot of us around to give you sympathy!!
my DC have goats milk, this is another thing you can try now if you wish. Go for pasturised, all the supermarkets have it. you can cook with it just the same as cows milk, it is fab stuff. it cured my DC's tummy probs and eczema. My eldest didn't put any weight on between 11 months and 2 years old, as during this time i stopped bf him and we didn't know that the cows milk was the problem. like you say, he was permanently ill for that year, because he was having a bad reaction to the milk the whole time and his system was totally in chaos. He has caught up now though, he will be 7 yrs old next week. once he began to put on weight, he did really well, but it was a difficult thing to get going. Keep posting, you'll certainly get help here

Meant to say one other food source I found useful (but may not be for everyone I guess) was Hipp baby food jars - they do around half a dozen dairy free ones of the 7 month size. DD wasn't all that keen to start with but grew to love them. They have been a reliable fall back when she goes through phases of refusing my home-made offerings!

Oh and avocado is good and calorific too - if he's not used to it you may need to mix it with a favourite food (eg banana?) to start with.

another idea, sounds rather odd, but my lo's enjoyed egg (hoping he's ok with those) poached and squashed into mashed potato, with vitalite marg which is dairy-free to make it tasty...and a bit higher in calories.
worth a go?

good one festive - we used some hipp babyfood jars too

11 months is very young for croup, poor thing.

I'm assuming that the milk allergy and the croup have been medically diagnosed?

ask your doctor for pepti milk formula. ds refused nutramigen (which I heard tastes like neocate), but likes pepti.

I agree with adding olice oil to his food - we did this for ds when he was having pureed food.

also, I have some really tiny pasta shapes - I got them from waitrose - they are stellette (tiny stars), and also some farfallini from tesco (tiny bows). I could post them to you if you want - ds wont let us spoon-feed anymore, so we won't use them. They would go really well in pureed food.

I agree carbs are the way to go. how about mashed potato?

alternatively, you could get some gluten free pasta and puree that with the rest of the food?

I feel for you, as ds has allergies and it was so difficult until we discovered pasta.

tbh, you could persevere with less pureed food as the gagging is only them getting used to having to chew before they swallow!

Thanks so much for all this advice. I will try the olive oil trick straight away. He does have potato already so that's something and I didn't know I could puree the pasta. I've got the little baby pasta so will try that too. I was using hipp jars but since he's been ill he's got really fussy. Just to clarify Desiderata yes he has been medically diagnosed for the allergy. He's had all the tests and has tested positive for milk and sadly egg too. He's also been seen twice this week by GP who has confirmed the croup. Which thankfully is improving now. One thing I find which I want to just have a moan about is that I see other babies doing so well and thriving and I look at my DS and he's not like them at all. This is because he gets sick and what I can feed him is so limited. I think we are going to take him out of nursery too as he's just continually going back into the infection pit!

you can also get baby rice which is a very smooth texture. However at 11 months you do need to try and move him on to more textured food. One of mine was difficult over texture, I know its not easy.

huge sympathies here.....I have been thro tis with mine.....three times in fact!!!

I have 5 kiddies, 3 allergic to milk and the other 2 also suffer from milk 'build up' which can give them ecxma (?), altho they do still have normal cows milk.

I too am allergic to milk and am currently finding it hard myself to gain weight, altho the kiddies now gain well, even tho I had all three drop off the centiles when small!

anyhoo.......

unless medical advice has changed drastically since mine were babies (and I do appreciate that it does, even in 5yrs!), then at 11mths there should be now real reason why not to start using soya in cooking.

when my last was small (he is now 5), the advice was 6mths and altho I did use prejomine (the non-allergy milk that he was on), right up until his fifth birthday for a main drink (he now has soya), soya was in the food from 6mths without major effect.

for weight gaining....

mashed avodaco, banana and apple was a great one for mine. add to dairy free yogs, spread on toast (will need protection for this for carpet and clothes as it does stain), or even put on top of weetabix with his normal milk (expressed BM I assume).

go up to 6small meals a day, with snacks to if possible. If he is losing seight then his tummy will be tiny.....so small and often is the key to help his appetite to improve.

raisins/bananas/dairy free biscuits/toast with honey (well......not recommended just yet but he is nearly there/toast with marmite.
tesco value scotch pancakes are milk free (they are my mainstay if I am off colour) with spreads of choice on top.....jam/dairy free choc spread (the best one is in sainsburys) or the banana/avocado stuff on top.
ermmmmmm......

will think more and come back.

ooh, if you aren't yet doing so tho, vitimin drops are a must!!!!

Just in case nobody has mentioned, Neocate advance comes in chocolate and banana flavours (it can be used from 1 yr onwards and it tastes good enough, I have tasted it! .

DS has been in a restricted diet for almost 3 years now. I have found it easier to balance by ensuring DS has 2 vegetables/fruits plus a protein portion (at that age it should be about a table spoon) and carbs every meal. And to vary the ingredients as much as possible.

DS is a bit iffy about textures too, but if I serve the food separated (like in chicken, and then 2 vegs to the side -not touching- he eat everything, if I mix them most times he refuses to eat them although he can eat them without problem if they are pureed in a sauce).

HTH

This is great thanks so much. I'm writing all this down for a shopping list. Loving the scotsh pancakes idea with cho spread! Sure even my DS he'll eat that! Hi chrismassendsme I have just started him on the daily vit drops so that's good. I should say that I am putting a tea spoon of baby rice is all his veg and any bannana by the way and always have done. My Peds doc said that I get the formula soya on prescription is that right? Can I buy it over the counter though?

Regarding the chocolate spread... check it doesn't contain nuts! (actually, if you find one without milk please let me know! )

yup....allergy milk is on presription, altho you can also buy certain ones too (helpful if away and you run out). in fact, when they offer it you, try to make sure is is one you get get over the counter too....I made this mistake and only realised when I WAS away.

the choc spread from sainsburys....founf in the free-from aisle....

suitable for vegetarians/vegans, dairy free, gluten free, nut free, cholestral free

HTH

ooh....another thing.....

if you are still breastfeeding, are you making you are dairy free????

just a thought, as I never realised I needed to be to with my first allergic baby and at that point we didn't know it was me that passed the allergy on.

My DS had an allergy to cow's milk (amongst others) and he was in the lucky small % of people with allergy to cow's milk who can tolerate goats milk. Most people with allergy to cow's milk tend to also be allergic to other milk but there are some who aren't.

COuld you get him tested for goats milk?

Also DS used to eat Jacobs Fig Rolls (very good for allergy sufferers as no egg, milk, nuts etc...) when he was a tot. They are yummy and have the advantage of figs and most importantly are likely to be eaten.

DS grew out of his milk allergy (sadly not the other allergies).

I eat tons of dairy! Why do I have to cut it out? Does it effect my breast milk?

if you are bf then you need to cut out your ds' allergen's too. We didn't see any change in dd2 until I cut everything out as well as it does go through into milk (although gluten doesn't strangely!). Our dd2 didn't go onto a special formula until she was 13 months when I gave up bf. Our consultant put her on Pepti because it's more palatable, and gave us the vanilla flavoured neocate as an emergency substitute. She also got us to mix it with a bit of breast milk and crusha syrup which we gradually reduced until she would take "straight" Pepti

dolly.......any dairy in your diet is immediately transfered back ino your beast milk!!

my paed and dietition told me this while I was still feeding DD2 and she was still being ill and poor weight gain.

it therefore meant (for me at least), that any subsequent babies had to be dairy free from me finding out I was pregnant with them.

sadly it didn't help with DD3 or DS2, altho DS1 seemed to cope fairly well on normal milk (except for the excsma).

DS2 however still was bad while I breastfed and was in hospital for two months with me whil we weaned him over to special milk (that wasn't the only reason we were in hospital I hasten to add. his liver went peculiar too and he was rather yellow for a long time). he also now has bowel issues unrelated to the milk allergy.

I however was only diagnosed recently with my milk allergy......explains soooooooooooo much.........and am also allergic to many other things too now.

HOWEVER.....if you are going to continue breastfeeding, you really really should cut your dairy BUT,you must also go to the docs as while I was BFing and dairy free I needed calcium supplements.

please don't fret tho that you have done him any harm.....(I felt guilty for this for a long long time).....it won't harm him, it just means that he isn't completely dairy free YET. it is possible for you to carry on, and carry on well and happy that he is still getting the best nourishment, you just have to nourish yourself too.