How to wean baby with allergies?

[flyingbeet]

My baby has a cows milk protein allergy. I EBF and have cut out all dairy. She was still having symptoms so I cut out soy, eggs, fish and nuts. I've started weaning her and noticed she her tummy had gotten upset after eaten avocado. Should I wait till she gets better before introducing a new food ( which could take at least a week). The only other food I have given her is banana and she's fine with it. Im a bit stuck since I don't want to keep giving her the same thing but at the same time I feel like if I introduce a new food I won't be able to tell if it she's okay with it

You follow the official guidance that is most recent.

I’d wait until her tummy is better.- she’s only little so a week of no solids won’t hurt her. Food before one is more for learning how to eat, rather than nutrition - she’ll get all she needs from breastmilk and the vitamin supplement.

however, do reintroduce avocado in a month or so - sometimes babies get an upset tummy because they aren’t used to solids in general, so it may be fine in a bit.

This is actually incorrect. Food before 1 is not for fun or exploration it's absolutly nutritionally necessary.

Weaning is a massive change to the digestive system.

Did the avocado bring any further symptoms or just the upset stomach?

Are you in touch with a dietician?

If you haven't got dietician input, please request to be referred.

Another saying that you need a referral to a Paediatric Dietician. I'd ask the GP for one on Monday. I'm surprised they given how many foods you've had to stop during BFing that your GP hadn't referred you already.

I'd also speak to Allergy UK.

And I agree that food is most definitely not just for fun until they're one. That saying needs banning.

Are you under the dieticians?

My boy is allergic to dairy and egg. We would try a new food every three days to be able to know if there were any delayed reactions. Funnily enough, I thought the same about avocado with my son so I waited a while and tried it again to see the same symptoms appeared. This was all under the advice of the dietician team.

Weaning was long winded for us, I was really anxious of introducing new things so took it really slowly. Once you've ticked off the first few, it gets easier I promise.

In addition to this, it’s really crucial to introduce possible allergens as early as possible as the body will be better able to become accustomed to those foods. One of the reasons for the huge rise in allergies is parents being told to start solids later and later. Early exposure is key. Having a bit of an upset tummy isnt necessarily the same as a genuine allergy.

My daughter has multiple food allergies although we had identified some through breastfeeding she wasn't symptom free when we started weaning. I wean broadly as normal although slowly as she didn't really engage until over a 12 months old but we had tried most of the big allergens not already identified as one of her allergens through my diet by about 8 months. It's important to get them into their diets as early as possible especially nuts unless you have already identified them as an allergen. I didn't follow standard meal foods and she would have regular foods at breakfast time for example rather than breakfast foods. We could offer her us 3 meals a day and she would only actually eat a small amount of food just a few spoons a day and this helped us try more foods. I tried to not give her the same foods as me after she reacted to red peppers both through my breastmilk and directly as we had the same lunch. After this I saved some of my food and gave it to her the next day as long as I didn't suspect her reacting to it.

We were keeping detailed food diaries already which we continued through weaning. If we thought she was reacting to something we would go back to safe foods for a couple of days and then go back to testing maybe and new foods with time the list of safe foods grew in the early days we went down to just a few foods.

There were some foods she definitely reacted too, other foods that we suspected to be allergens and we would take them out for a few weeks then on a good day (for that time) we would try them again to see if she then had a run of worse days. We also had foods that she just struggled to digest unrelated to allergies, these were removed and tried every few months. She couldn't cope with bananas until 18 months I think they must have given her a bit of a tummy ache, beetroot gave her rancid smelling poos, she was gluten intolerant until 3 and if she had too much pasta or cous cous she would get really bad trapped wind and struggle to sleep. Taking cous cous out of her diet and switching to brown rice pasta was enough to stop the trapped wind without removing all gluten.

Then there was managing things like colds and teething as both gave her mucus loose poos so it was important to pay attention to her general health as that could make us think she was reacting to something when she wasn't.

She was about 15 months before we got her symptom free so we had to keep testing foods even though she was having reactions. If she was having a reaction we gave her a day or two to get over the worst of it then start trying foods but sticking to foods that were lower risks of causing a reaction. Different fruits and vegetables that were in the same food family of some her other allergens - she's allergic to nearly all nightshades and a couple of legumes these were higher risks to try but things like root veg and brassicas were lower risks.