Help...need other formula options for 7month old (dairy allergy / refuses nutramigen / soya formulas)

[lizziejo]

DS is still exclusively bf and I'm back to work in new year and worried i won't be able to /have time to express enough. He wouldn't take the hydrolysed formulas or SMA soy.

I keep seeing this nanny goat formula in the chemist but I've heard its not a good idea. Has anyone used it?? Or are there any other options out there.

Only want to cover 2 feeds a day

And is it okay to put rice milk in a 7 month olds food when cooking / in cereal??

Any ideas very gratefully received!

Hi. I was in the same position when I went back to work. I managed to express 6 oz at work over two goes, but it was hard and I didn't manage to keep it up because I was just too busy. I feel pretty crap about that. It is possible though, so don't rule it out without trying.

You can definitely use rice milk for cooking and cereal, which should help you. Our paed was very strongly anti the goats milk - he said he would like to see it banned from the UK! Also, think its very likely your DS will be allergic to goats milk if they are allergic to cows milk.

Some people have said they manage without giving anything to their children during the day and that they only have water, so you could look at that.

My DS has a breast feed before breakfast, milk with cereal (previously ebm, now nutramigen), 2 x bottles at nursery, usually about 6 oz in total, sometimes a bit more often less, then I feed him before bed. Since he doesn't have any more feeds, I did find in the end I could express once during the day and once before I went to bed to get enough milk for two feeds the next day.

Good luck, I hope its ok. Going back to work is difficult, I know.

absolutely fine to use rice milk in cooking and cereal.
your baby will be fine as well if you are just breastfeeding before and after nursery esp if it's only 2 feeds.
he'll just take more solids/water and feed plenty while you're around.

Thanks guys that's really helpful. And I'll try rice milk tomorrow on his cereal.

Its amazing how you can ebf but still feel guilty when you try something else!

Lizzie, I usually manage to express about 9 oz over 2 sessions in work which at the moment is enough for ds4 without resorting to formula. He is on some solids though. I also think it is a good idea to try to find some time to express a little bit in the evenings after the LO has gone to bed to help to keep a freezer stash and also to make up any shortfall. When ds2 was a baby he got a reaction to his first bottle of formula which my GP at the time said was exzema. So I was advised to bf for as long as possible. However I couldn't keep up with him and he did get the odd bottle of Nanny. Now he never got a skin reaction to Nanny but I am no expert on these things and wouldn't like to say that this would be true for your ds. I also found my boys, when they were older were less mucousy on goats milk than cows milk.

If I were you, I would invest in a good double pump and try your best to express enough but maybe try him on a small amount of Nanny to see if he's OK with it? If only used occasionally it might not be a bad thing.

I had this problem and just persevered with Pepti formula (best of a bad bunch in out experience). It took many months before dd had her epiphany at almost 12 months and started taking it in any quantity. I was given calcium supplement for her from the dietician to placate my guilt over her intake. I found that was a huge weight off my mind.

My boys dont react to goats milk either- indeed ds3 was non verbal until he switched at 4 but he does have asd and they often mix

If its a lactose issues I can recommend enfamil lactofree (prescription) formula as it tastes far, far better than other alternatives.

Otherwise have you thought about talking to a bf counsellor?

(calcim v v important- have a dairy allergy myself and starting to have a few so-far minor breaks in my foot, toes etc. not good)

There's also oat milk with calcium which you can get in bigger supermarkets.

Just remember rice milk has nothing like the same composition as cow's milk or even soya (nothing like as much protein) - you can subtstitute it so that you've got something 'milky' in a recipe for taste, but it won't have the same nutritional value.

Goat's milk not a great idea if there's a dairy allergy as they have a lot of proteins in common with cow's milk.

Are you sure it's the formula he's rejecting rather than the bottle or cup it's in, or are you already managing to give him expressed milk in the same container? It can take a good while to get them to take anything from a cup or bottle if they haven't had a lot already.

You don't say how many hours you'll be doing but if it's really only two feeds worth then it will get easier as your baby gets older - more water and solid food will be fine during that time even if you start off giving expressed milk or formula. If it's long days though then it will be harder to go without milk feeds.

Good luck anyway!

Just wanted to say that I was in exactly the same boat as you when I went back to work in September. DS was just over seven months and point blank refused his nutramigen. But he settled really quickly into the habit of breastfeeding before I went to work and then again as soon as I picked him up with no milk in between. Nursery gave him a soya yoghurt mid-afternoon and we found he would take nutramigen on weetabix for breakfast.

He is now 11 months and is coping well with a very gradual introduction of cow's milk products.

There are three babies in his room at nursery who have no milk in the day and are still EBF - it is more common than you might think!

Actually, the girls in ds4's nursery found that when ds4 was refusing bottles of EBM he would take it when mixed with Liga. Not with the organic porridge I provided, mind you, just the sugary old Liga so I had to relax a bit on my purist attitude to food!

lizziejo I think you might be able to do this only with expressed milk. I agree that if it's only 2 feeds in a day at this point, his feeds will spread out more when he's older. Also he's quite likely to wait until you've come back to take in any large volume of milk. My ebf ds2 did this - he would rarely take more than about 2oz expressed milk in a bottle at nursery. Based on what ds1 used to get through, I hired a hospital-grade pump (as I was working from home) and built up a stock of expressed milk before I ever left ds2. But I ended up with left-over milk and quickly was able to reduce the amount of pumping during the day to just one session.

I'd also like to warn you off the goat's milk and soya formulas. You don't want your little one to develop any more food sensitivities, and there is a strong link between sensitivity to cow's milk and to soya. Some kids do manage on soya or goat's milk formula, but my experience of this is that ds1 developed a soya intolerance after he'd been given lots of soya dairy alternatives (including formula) from about 8 months. Now (6yo) he's fine with cow's milk products (although he doesn't have it on its own) and goat's milk but still seems to react to soya - and soya is everywhere and so hard to avoid. It's partly because of this that I carried on breastfeeding ds2 for so long.

The breastfeeding support groups have some good leaflets about breastfeeding and work - I recommend the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers or La Leche League.

I agree with peachy that you should be aware of your ds's calcium intake. We saw a dietitian (who was of limited help tbh) and I also used the vegan society's website to make sure ds1 had lots of non-dairy sources of calcium in his diet. He used to have porridge with dried apricots as breakfast. Hoummous is a great alternative to soft cheese although unfortunately he hates it now. But he still eats lots of broccoli!! You can get calcium-fortified orange juice and we use calcium-fortified rice milk on cereal instead of cow's milk.

I think most people have answered you sufficiently here! Rice milk ok to use but lacks protein; get one that has added calcium/vitamin D.
Nanny formula milk might be ok, might not - some people can use it successfully if it is the bovine casein protein that your DS is allergic to; if it is the lactose then it won't help at all. There is a risk, as mummypig says, that your DS could develop sensitivity to goat casein protein as well.

Interestingly, although god alone knows where you could get hold of it, ass's milk should be fine. Apologies for the technical nature of this link but it describes a trial done on children with CMA who were exposed to both goat's milk and ass's milk - ass's milk is apparently closer to human milk in composition and there was only one child who developed a reaction to it, as opposed to most of them developing a reaction to the goat's milk.

I only use ass's milk to bathe in personally.

THen you'll know where to get it from, DNN, won't you?!

ahh now ass's milk, or donkey milk as I like to call it is nigh on impossible to find. trust me, I looked.
we tried buffalo milk too, but it is so strong tasting it made me feel a bit ill. so didn't try it straight with ds2 as didn't think he'd like it.

babies to react to cows milk usually react to goats milk too because the proteins are very, very similar.
i wouldn't bother with it myself

we use fortified oat milk

Just a tip about the expressing - I found it extremely hard to express while working, partly because I was always under huge time pressure, and one thing that really helped was to express off one side during his morning feed (and then off the other once he'd finished) and then again at a later feed.

I think also at around 8 months I reduced to 3 feeds a day, so you might find you only need to cover one feed.

Good luck...

Thanks guys for all the ideas... rice milk is working well in the mornings now. And thanks mummypig for the ideas re calcium - I'm getting worried that he's not getting enough.

Finally got to the allergy clinic yesterday and DS had the skin prick test. It confirmed the milk allergy but it seems he also has an egg allergy (and by the sizes of the weals its much worse than the the milk.) He will prescribe neocate to try (although I don't hold out much hope as nutramigen was refused).

He slated the goats milk formula...'I don't agree with the NHS on many things but the one thing is that nanny goat milk should be banned'...but still not sure why he disliked it so much. But he said as some of you did that there is no point trying it if DS already has a milk allergy. He also didn't like soya formulas.

Hit a bit of a problem with the expressing now as have a very sore area (don't think its mastitis as had that before) - think I might have been overdoing the expressing. Better slow down as worried I'll do some damage! But I think I may get away with only one bottle at nursery afterall or maybe he'll take to neocate! Pigs might fly...

Glad you got to an allergy clinic and that the reactions were confirmed by the skin prick tests. I am currently egg free myself as ds3 (5 1/2 mths) seems to be reacting quite badly to eggs when I eat them . So we can swap egg-free ideas if you like.