Any Advice regarding milk and my 18 m old ds

[TheLadyEvenstar]

Ok He has always enjoyed his milk but over the last few months he has been very chesty after a bottle. He was on full fat cows milk but i have now swapped to soya milk. The problem is he doesn't like it and has a bad stomach after having soya milk. Now I have an allergy to soya full stop and am wondering if he does as well.

My dad, mum, brother and myself all have an intolerance to milk and dairy products....some of us are worse than others.

Is there any alternative i can give him which will not make him so chesty?

also when he eats milk chocolate he is very chesty but seems to be better with white chocolate.

My ds has a dairy intolerance not alergy. He can stomach low fat soft cheese but is ill on full fat hard ceese. He can stomach semi-skimmed milk but is sick on full fat.

We now buy the lacto free semi-skimmed milk.
If we run out we will give him semi-skimmed normal cows milk and he's fine but i feel better giving him the lacto free. (he's 18 months)

I had a dairy alergy untill i was 7 but grew out of it. I has the sme symtoms as your ds very chesty and would cough untill i was sick.

also with soya the HV and dr.s reconmended that i didn't give ds soya because in is very low in calcium in comparison to cows milk. You can get soya formula wich has added calcium. But as you've said your ds doesn't seem to get on well with soya it may be worth trying the lacto free milk or switch to semi-skimmed.

*allergy, not alergy.

Can your ds eat any other dairy like yoghurts?

Ds loves them but can't stomach them. I brought him the lacto free yoghurts but on further inspection the second ingredient was sugar so had to scrap that idea.

He's fine on plain goats yoghurt but i have to add jam to it as its really sour. So not sure if that's any better sugar wise than the lacto free yohurts.

I would drink goats milk instead of cows when allergic but its a pretty strong taste for an 18 month old. What do you drink now with your allery?

Hiya, Have you tried rice milk?

Might be worth trying to keep him fairly dairy and soya-free for a while, then try reintroducing dairy in a few months. If symptoms reappear then stop for a while and try later.

In the meantime look into increasing other high-calcium foods in his diet (there are quite a few that aren't milk/soya based). If you google 'high calcium food' you should get some ideas.

Also increase protein from other sources (pulses, meat). I also used vitamin drops in rice milk as a drink when DD was that age - you can get calcium-fortified rice milk which helps with the calcium too.

From memory, when you reintroduce dairy the most easily tolerated is dairy 'cooked into' things (eg biscuits), then go on to cheese, then yoghurt, then finally raw milk (which is the hardest to digest). Look out for symptoms like eczema as well as digestive and resp symptoms.

Am not an expert btw - DD was dairy-allergic from birth so was kept dairy-free till about 18 months old, when I tried reintroducing. She initially got eczema, but seems to have grown out of it from around 2 years old. She does occasionally complain of a sore tummy after milk though, so I try and keep that to a minimum.

Right well he won't drink the soya milk for love nor money unless i flavour it with chocolate!

LittleMiss I don't drink milk unless it is a smidgen in coffee, i can't drink a glass of milk.

I should have said he is already on semi skimmed and has been since he was 9 months old and had a chest infection. thats when i first noticed the milk was making his chst worse.

Pixel, what would you give as a milk alternative then? he is a real milk addict.

You could try mixing them until he is used to the taste - eg start with 90% skimmed milk and 10% rice milk and if he'll drink that, go on to 20% next time and so on.

The only thing to be aware of with rice milk though is that it's quite sweet so not ideal as a bedtime drink. My DD had it the mornings when she woke up, then maybe another drink during the afternoon and no milk at night - they do get used to it. At 2.8 she only has milk (50:50 soya and semi-skimmed) as a drink in the mornings, but really we could have knocked that on the head months ago and concentrated on just food for nutrition.

You can also get oat milk which is quite nice and not as sugary as rice milk, not sure if you can get it calcium fortified though.

As you probably know, rice milk and oat milk don't have much protein so make sure his diet has plenty from other sources.

Pixel
Thankyou! And i didn't know they didn't have a lot of protien i never had this prob with ds1 and so am going into this blind so to speak.

I bought some goats milk today and he has lapped that up.......lol that makes him sound like a kitten and his chest is not rattling as it does with cows milk. so maybe this is going to be ok???

I nearly mentioned goat and sheep milk but didn't as I don't know that much about them. As far as I know the proteins are slightly different to those in cow's milk, and can be beneficial for some, but not most, allergy sufferers. Hopefully they will be okay for your DS!

Haven't tried them on DD as we went down the Nutramigen / soya formula route when she was v young (under 18 months), then she went on to rice milk and soya milk when she was older.

If you google 'dairy allergy' and 'dairy allergy respiratory' you should hopefully get some useful info. Good luck

Pixel thanks! I am really thankful

Hi, I have started a new group which is for parents dealing with allergies and itolorences, Reflux, colic and skin problems.

I read your post and think it may be of interest to you to have a look and hopefully join. It is a new site and open to make better so any input you have on the site will help others too. We have a few memtor members who are ready to help you settle in and welcome you and have files and links to intresting topics and items.

It has a recipe page where we can upload great things we have tried and the more people we encourage to use the site the better it will become.

I hope this is of some use to you please use this link and to join click on the purple button and I will aprove you membership when I get it through.

Hope to speak soon Michelle
groups.yahoo.com/group/reflux-baby-you-are-not-alone/