Exclusion Diets second time around

[nellymoo]

I'm Currently 35 weeks pregnant with DC2. DD1 is three and has numerous and severe food allergies. Because she was breastfed, it took us quite sometime to work out why she was so unsettled, miserable and sick as a new baby. After her diagnosis of CMP, egg, tree nut, groundnut, legumes, peanut allergy, and following a very boring exclusion diet by me, she was much improved, and really has thrived. I happily fed her for about 20 months.

I really want to BF this one too. SO, what I'm wondering is, if you already have a child with allergies, did you start off excluding problem foods from your diet straight away? On one hand, had I known before hand about the effects of my diet on DD1, it would have saved us an awful lot of misery and heartache. On the other hand, I am quite confused as to whether it may possibly lead to more harm by not exposing my DC to potential allergens through my milk (am thinking current advice about peanuts in pregnancy specifically, i guess...).

My second question is, if you DID exclude things from your diet, did you start doing this before your EDD, or after you had given birth? Milk was certainly the worst offender first time round, so am wondering if I should start cutting it out. One last weekend of chocolate and cake binging?

The advice I was given when DD was tested on Monday for allergies was that the current thinking is that avoiding may cause more problems.

DS now three has multiple allergies also which presented themselves when i was exclusively breastfeeding him so I was really worried about this too.

I started off second time round not avoiding anything and cutting things out when it looked like they became a problem.

At least second time round you are more aware and can cut things out more quickly.

And did you end up having to exclude anything? Is your DD allergic to anything or were these the first lot of allergy tests for her this week? How old was she when you were first offered allergy testing?

Nosey nosey nosey!

I was excluding egg and dairy, but she only tested positive to egg.

At my DS's last appointment when DD was 8 weeks old, we asked about the likelihood of her having allergies and they offered to test her at 6 months old before we started weaning her.