Have eaten dairy over Xmas. how long before I can BF again

[strawberrycornetto]

I have been expressing and throwing away the milk. Not sure if I will start again but does anyone know how long before its safe for me to BF again? I did feed DS and eat dairy for 7 months, but since giving up I ate cheese once and he was very sick the day after. I was thinking of giving it two clear days, any thoughts??

Thanks!!

well it can take up to 4 weeks for all traces of dairy to be out of your system.

if you fed him for 7 months with no adverse reasctions then personally I would assume that the sickness was coincidental and not related to your cheese eating.

or are there other things that make you think he is intolerant?

Sorry, should have said, he's allergic to cows milk. I cut it out when he was diagnosed and his eczema cleared up and the sickness we had put down to reflux also cleared up. I don't want to wait 4 weeks because I don't think my milk supply would last (and the dietician didn't tell me to) but the vomiting after the cheese was like the allergic reaction he's had to soya, so I wondered if there was a period where the majority of the milk protein would have passed through. I didn't have any milk over Christmas, but I had some cream and some cheese. Perhaps I should just call it a day now but I'm not sure I want to, although DH has been pushing me to....

Used to give it 24 hours with dd but each child is different....

if he is actually allergic to it, rather than intolerant you'll need to leave it a lot longer than a couple of days I would imagine.

ds2 is intolerant and used to react up to 5 days after I had eaten dairy.

how old is he? and what is he having atm if you aren't breastfeeding him?

He's 10 months. He's on nutramigen, and he's been having all formula rather than 2 bfs a day and 2 lots of formula.

Doris, was your DD actually allergic or just intolerant?

Maybe the cold weather which seems to have started after Christmas (here at least!).

I doubt stopping bf would cause a flare.

If you want to start feeding him again, maybe start by giving him the formula (so he isn't starving) and them put him on the breast for a small bit just to check. Do it first thing in the am so you can watch him all day.

It is difficult to tell with things through breastmilk though isn't it. I don't think that it made any difference to my son's eczema what I ate, even though he had confirmed milk, egg and tree nut allergies at the time. In our case he seems to have both the eczema and the allergies, which commonly go together, but I haven't been able to link the two at all. The allergic responses have been hives/redness/wheezing/vomiting.

There seems so much variation in how they react.

Good luck if you start trying the bf again.

Thanks. I think I have to accept the feeding is over, because I have eaten some dairy again today. Feel a bit of a failure / selfish but I think the time has come. DH says I've done well to carry on when I went back to work and to cut out dairy for so long. I feel DS cannot walk away from this so I shouldn't be able to either.

I would try it once before giving up - ds reacted terribly to my eating dairy until he was 10 months old, and then suddenly stopped (I realised because of an accident!).

These things often do clear up by themselves.

FWIW DD can now eat dairy as she grew out of it, we slowly reintroduced it into her diet with trials initially not good"mummy my tummy hurts" but left it for 6 month periods before retrying she's now 3 and eats what she wants!