Going cold turkey breastfeeding a dairy free baby

[whatsthescoregeorgedoors]

I don't want to breastfeed any more. Please do not try to persuade me to do this.

My son has CMPA and probably multiple allergies or intolerances. I have cut everything g I can think of out of my diet, he is on omeprazole. After a period of time in which he was settled and we were getting somewhere with sleep etc I ate something that disagreed with him again and we are having more shit feeding, waking through the night, screaming, failure to nap.

And I am starting to hate him. I don't want to feed him to calm him down any more, I just want him to be on formula that agrees with his tummy and to be able to parent both him and my older child effectively. I want my DH to be able to help me with my high needs baby and to be able to spend time with my DD.

My milk supply keeps going lower due to stress, I have put on half a stone but am still struggling for milk supply despite pumping (breastfeeding teas also upset my son), he is scraping by in terms of weight gain (very stressful, about to drop another centile on top of the 2 already) and I have psoriasis all over my body. I need to stop
Worrying about how much he is getting.

I need to stop. He is 3.5 months old and wonMr take a bottle easily - he will take a bit of Alfamino/neocate mixed with Nesquik or breastmilk when hungry, but not enough.

Can I just go cold turkey (happy to pump to prevent mastitis)? Will he switch if I just make breastfeeding unavailable, or go away for the weekend (DH is encouraging me to take DD away so that he can battle it out)?

What bottles can I use that might make his reflux less bad?

Oh yes, the chocolate one is out. Dietitians suggest banana and strawberry. But it is academic at the moment!

Weaning from Thursday (not that he will take much for a while obviously, but am hoping that it might help a bit with reflux and/or weight gain in time. Ho hum!

Nope! All of us are give or take the same size and this sister is the tallest!

We started weaning at 24 weeks on advice of our hv/gp but it was 26 weeks before she would even entertain eating a spoonful!
It also didn't make any difference to her reflux other than to make her sick a scary shade of orange!

My mum weaned my sister super early (I guess around 3 months given the era) and had an awful time as she just wasn't ready but she desperately needed to put on weight. It was only after weaning started that the cmpa was identified. Even if dairy touched her she came up in a rash!

Its good you are on a decent dose of omperazole, hopefully it will help.

We have found the allergy free toddler and baby recipe book really helpful with weaning. It is approved by allergy UK and we use a lot of the initial flavour combinations as sandwich fillings or pasta sauces as our food restrictions make them difficult! Especially the lack of nightshades!

Keep an eye on what your substitutes contain. We switched to coconut based dairy products which was how we twigged we react to coconut too!

If you haven't already I would push to see a dietician

Oh you poor thing. Both mine had CMPA and reflux - still breastfeeding DC2 and have had to cut loads out of my diet, it's really bloody hard. That's without the worries about weight (both mine have been fine on that score) so I really feel for you It's clear from your posts that you're trying everything you can and you sound desperate
You've had loads of good advice already, just two things to add:

• you mention mucus in nappies, I wonder if this is because of accidentally eating dairy still, or because of another allergen? If mucus is still there after a full 6 weeks dairy-free it might be worth considering
• have you been referred to the infant feeding team (sorry if you mentioned this and I missed it)? If not ask the HV to refer you. And if you can afford to go private, see a good lactation consultant. They can advise on bottle feeding too and not just breastfeeding. If you're in the east of England I can recommend one.

@NameChange30

I was referred to infant feeding for the tongue tie by the breastfeeding clinic, but got it cut privately in the end. Maybe that was a mistake really - I had read that a posterior one is sometimes refused on the NHS and wanted to see someone sooner as was a bit desperate. The person I saw, Dr Levinkind, suggested that I made him more comfortable before cutting it by trying to address the reflux and also doing osteopathy, so would probably have been quicker on the NHS. Maybe I will ask for a referral back again in that case for bottles/feeding generally.

I have been fighting the mucus for a long time. Still mucus after 6 weeks no dairy, so there is undoubtedly something else. I did a food diary, but just couldn't spot a pattern. Because there is no rash I understand that skin prick isn't accurate at this age.

Basically I feel like I have been flailing around generally, probably doing the wrong things at the wrong time. I hope beyond hope that things will come good and I haven't stunted him with not being able to get the maximum amount into him with minimal weight gain. Really, that is all I need.

None of this is your fault, you've been doing amazingly

If the food diary isn't giving clues, the most common allergies in babies are milk, soya, egg and wheat. But I think you've cut those out haven't you? I guess just keep going with the food diary and trying with the formula.

The allergy specialist we spoke to for DD said that Aptamil Pepti can be more palatable if they tolerate it (yours might not).

It's rare but there are some babies that react to coconut, which Neocate is made from, so it could be worth considering.

Are you taking vitamins yourself or giving vitamins to baby? Some contain soya (the pregnacare breastfeeding ones) or coconut oil (some baby vitamins).

I haven't seen him myself but I've heard very good things about Dr Neil Shah if you can afford it
finder.hcahealthcare.co.uk/hca/specialist/dr_neil_shah

Were you discharged by the infant feeding team, then? If so maybe request a new referral. They can advise on switching to bottles and not just on the tongue tie.

I was offered an appointment with the IF team that would have been pretty tricky to make in a few weeks' time but never went as went privately for TT. Have asked HV to refer again. I didn't know they did anything other than TT really. Hence the flailing! My GP has been very good and kind, but not very good about signposting elsewhere.

Basically I cut dairy out first, but found from food diary that nuts. Egg, wheat might also be culprits. My GP said wasn't CMPA, so put back in and then cut out again when I felt it was much worse - around 3 weeks ago. I literally just discovered the soy in the pregnacare vitamins and the fact that local eateries fry in soya, so my safe portion of chips have not been safe after all. So basically I have never been totally soy free. It's a bit of a nightmare, huh!

Am pretty sure nuts were an issue because fenugreek, which I took to boost supply, was an issue. Disaster!!

OP you are a superhero. Keep going. (Not necessarily with breastfeeding, just keep going)

My youngest had reflux, tongue tie, various allergies, weight loss, it was just like you say, flailing around not sure what to cut out or try next. Was it the type of bottle, the type of milk, something I was eating, some physical thing? With hindsight it was a bit of everything.

Not being able to feed your baby properly is so hard. It's your first and most important job as a mum and when you feel you're not doing it right it's just soul destroying.

But we got there, he's 9 now, we've worked up the dairy ladder, got there quite quickly actually, turns out tomatoes and kiwis affect him much more than dairy. There was no one big thing that fixed it for us tbh, his reflux slowly got better with age and that made both of us less fearful of eating I think, because he was more comfortable. His lovely auntie dealt with lots of tears when we stopped breastfeeding, I didn't even ask her how much he cried, I just didn't want to know. I couldn't be in the house. But he doesn't remember that now, even if his auntie is probably still traumatised.

I'm not sure if that's comforting or not op, it will get better but I don't have any quick answers, I'm sorry.

Ds is 9 now, a pretty average size, has a remarkably good and open minded attitude to food considering how much he hated it in the first 6 months of his life!

"It's a bit of a nightmare, huh!"

Absolutely. Complete minefield.
I found the advice on this website/blog very helpful: dilanandme.com/
There is a Facebook group which was started by the author: "Breastfeeding with CMPA and other allergies", it's also helpful. Please note that the group doesn't offer advice on formula but they can advise on everything else.

We had such a nightmare with food diaries at first. I would have taken dairy out my diet much earlier had it not been for the gp being adamant it couldn't be things I'm eating and the food dairy showed no consistency. Once we got more on top of it I went back through the early diaries and every meal contained at least one thing I now know causes reactions!

We took out dairy and soya whilst visiting family for support. We had a more meat and two veg type diet whilst we where there. I kept quite a plain diet because I was scared of everything I was eating. After a few weeks we were back home. I gained in confidence and then started investigating alternatives adding new meals to our diet and symptoms returned. I compared food diaries and cut out a bunch of things. Those that I was unsure about I kept out for a week then trialled them in a systematic manner.
One thing I have found helpful it to not vary my diet day to day. We will have various meals in the week but the core ingredients are the same. The following week I will do the same but with different core ingredients and look to see if that is better or worse. Trying to compile a list of safe foods as well as flat out nos and maybes.

Make sure you are checking absolutely everything! We are down to 1 stock cube and a specific bullion powder as all of the other stock cubes have dairy/beef/soya/tomato /celery in!

I found tomato in some strawberry sweets I was craving and coconut is in pretty much all dairy alternatives!

I'm a member of the bfing cmpa Facebook page and they have a wealth of information on potential allergens including none top14 allergens!

@Superscientist

This sounds very familiar. Thank you. I have just joined the CMPA group and that prompted me to find the soya in my multivitamins. Sigh! I have been working really hard at it but do find it hard to control all the variables in the food diary. I am going to do as you say and try to strip it back a bit to see what is and isn't working. As you say, I am eating quite a protein and potatoes/rice diet. Necessary at the moment, so hopefully we will find some patterns when the soya has actually left my system.

My GP is brilliant but yes also not convinced something I am eating. And unbothered by the mucus. I am, however, convinced there is some connection.

Have you tried a latex teat? It was the only type my friend's baby would accept. They are the brown old fashioned looking ones. Should fit into normal bottles.

I got him to take a bottle this morning first thing. So that is positive.

Well, we are going through a brutal regression, which is strengthening my resolve a bit on feeding.

With my daughter, I started bottle feeding around 4.5 months because I was tired of her using me as a dummy in the night continuously and wanted to start the evening with a bottle and proper self settling in her bed and it was clear she was hungry. By 5.5 months we were exclusively bottle feeding and weaning and she was sleeping through lovely. My DS will be harder no doubt, but I need a bit of structure on the horizon with my daughter around. Absolutely no offence meant to the lovely ladies on here who EBF and attachment parent by cosleeping for an extended period of time, but I don't get the warm glow of maternal sacrifice from the idea that I will be doing this for longer than a couple of months more and I know I will be a better parent for having a better rhythm.

The reflux symptoms are stabilising, so am trying to promote some self settling in cot and pram by putting him down more awake. Just two months and if he is settled health wise I can sleep train. He is so overtired and being strapped to me in the sling is not really a great long term solution for us.

Well that's good news op. Hope he took another one today.

Outgrowing reflux definitely helped us. At one point we went back down the reflux meds and ended up just on gaviscon again and that also helped. The stronger stuff was disagreeing with him in the end I think, bunging him up a bit and making him feel uncomfortable.

@whatsthescoregeorgedoors sorry to revive memories of what sounds like a very dark time. Your situation is pretty much word for word how I feel right now. I wondered if you managed to get your little one onto the formula and what worked? Grateful for any tips.