Allergy to Aptamil Follow On Milk or a tummy bug?

[GiantUnderCrackers]

My 8 month old dd moved on to Aptamil follow on milk about a week ago (later than 6 months as we did a bulk buy of stage 1 so we were using it up). No problems with stage 1 at all and she was v happy on it. She was on stage 1 Aptamil and had 1 follow on feed per day for about 10 days and then from last weekend all her milk feeds were the follow on milk. On Tuesday last week she developed what I, the GP and the HV have thought was a stomach bug - vomiting and the runs. The vomiting has now stopped but the runs haven't. I have been advised this could go on for 3 weeks or so by the HV. I suddenly realised that she is now on the Apatamil follow on milk for all milk feeds....could this be a reaction to it rather than a bug? She isn't really eating anything, will take some water and milk so isn't getting dehydrated... but I am concerned the runs haven't gotten any better...she is ok within herself and seems to be getting a teeny bit better but has anyone else experienced a similar reaction? Do you think it could be an allergy rather than a bug? Advice gratefully received.

Can i ask why shes on follow on milk? If shes >12 months she can have regular cows milk, no need for expensive marketed crap.
Some children can develop a temporary lactose intolerance after a bad stomach bug, ds1 did and had to have soya milk for 3 months but then was fine afterwards

To be honest i thought that was what you moved onto after 6 months when using Aptamil formula ..(she is now 8 months). She has full fat cows milk on weetabix etc...

You can stay on regular aptamil until 12 months then just cows milk. Just check out the lactose intolerance thing first, even if you went back to your old formula now you might find she cant tolerate it after a bad tummy bug

There is an excessive amount of iron in follow on formulas and as this is poorly absorbed by the baby (~5% of the iron in formula can be absorbed by baby) the iron unused by them sits in their gut/stomach and acts as a breeding ground for bacteria (iron is used by bacteria to grow/multiply).

You may find switching back to Aptamil 1 may help as it will have less iron in it.

Are you still making her feeds up fresh with >70C water (adding the powder to the hot water)? Or at least making them with the >70C water and cooling them before refridgerating for no longer than 24hrs? Follow on still has to be reconstituted in the same way as infant formula (though I'm not sure if the packaging says that!).

What TruthSweet said.

Follow-on formula is widely regarded by infant nutritionists as an 'unnecessary product' - stage 1 infant formula is actually much better for babies up to 12 months (when they can go onto cow's milk if you want).

The companies encourage people to 'move on' to follow-on cos its a marketing gimmick - they aren't allowed to advertise stage 1 formula, but they are allowed to advertise follow-on.

Thanks all for your words of wisdom. I have switched dd back onto stage 1 formula, no real difference to her digestive system as yet as she still has the runs, but should hopefully be better for her after this tummy bug. We now know it was a tummy bug as DH now has it!

My six-month-old has reacted really badly to aptamil follow-on - he has been vomiting up whole feeds. At first I thought it was weaning that was making him gag but realised that his vomiting coincided with starting the follow-on. Have now switched back to aptamil hungry and he is fine again. Interesting to hear from others that you can stick to the stage 1/2 formula - the aptamil packets don't make it clear; in fact, they make you think that they need to go on to the follow-on.