lactose free milk - anyone had any experiences with it?

[katherine2008]

my health visitor has suggested trying lactose free milk which we have been using since saturday due to 8 week old dd's colic (which is bad but not the end of the world bad). we have gone from doing 7 feeds of 4 oz to 7 feeds of 3oz maximum with a lot of sicking up and a lot more burping - anyone had any experiences with lactose free before i throw it in the bin? I'm persisting til tomorrow...

which one are you using? we used sma lf for ds. completely cured his colic (lactose intolerance).

and what were you using before, and how was she on that?

hi - thanks for your message. we were using easy digest aptamil and now on sma LF. we are currently feeding at 2am/6am/9.30am/1pm/4pm/7pm and 10pm although she could probably go a little longer between the later feeds...the sicking up is quite new (and a little scary for me!) but the weird one is the taking less. i also think she is swallowing more air and is burpier...

was she fine on the aptamil?

sorry for all the questions. I'm no expert, just that sma lf helped ds tremendously, and we didn't experience anything out of the ordinary with it. we tried colief before that. if she was fine on the aptamil, have you tried adding colief to it (its a bit of a faff). also i'm sure aptamil do a lactose free version, but we couldn't find it at the time.

she was colicky and was waking herself up with wind all the time, so the HV suggested lactose free, but she is now on holiday for a week, so can't ask any questions! we have just fed again and not been sick, but only taken 3oz, so we'll try a little longer. Did you find big cans of the milk or is it just the little ones? so expensive!!! x

they only do the half size tins. ds is 3 now, and it was £6 a tin 3 years ago, so i dread to think what it is now. if you get on with it, you may be able to get some on prescription. (we got 12 tins which helped). Tis still cheaper than the colief which was £10 for a teeny tiny bottle.

it may be that it feels more filling for your lo? or what we found that ds was much more comfortable on it and finally started to put on weight (don't know if your having this problem?) if she's not hungry until the next feed, but only taking 3oz, then it may not be a problem, especially if she is putting on weight.

we tried omneo comfort before the sma lf and ds was often bringing it back up.

as you've been using since saturday, have you found its worked? we were sooo grateful to get our afternoons/evenings back and have a happy baby.

will talk to the HV and see if we can get some on prescription... it's hard to tell with dd as to what makes her so grouchy and impossible to settle from about 4 to 10pm! she's been as bad tonight as usual I think, but we'll try another day or two and see what happens. What had been happening with your son and did your HV suggest it toO? thanks!

i found out that Lactose intolerance it pretty rare in babies and cows milk protein allergy / intolerance is more common.

it could be that your hv has got it wrong.

i thought about lf with my ds but i have now discovered its cows milk.

I would go to your doctor, and maybe try soya formula

what 'symptoms' did your ds have that led you to look for other milk? it's hard to know what is normal in a baby and what isn't, but I assume my hv knows what she is talking about! thanks for the soya advice..

vomiting with formula, rash on feet

Hi, how was your evening? See how it goes over the next couple of days. However, if it hasn't improved in the last 3 days, it sounds unlikely that its the lactose thats causing the problem. With ds the change was immediate.
i look back now, and wish i'd known then, what we've learned. I stopped bf at 6 weeks cos i assumed he wasn't getting enough and thats why he was crying all the time and so unhappy. If i'd have known about colief then, i think it'd been different.

Protein allergy is known as a casein allergy (or intolerance) and is indeed more common but lots of people think they're actose intol.

IME the best way to determine between the two is a week on lactose free products- if they still react then you've got casein intol. I have 3 with casein intol, plus me and one without (plus dh without).

The best lactose free formula imo is called enfamil lacofree but you have to ask for it from GP and get it in- it's American and truly fabulous. However, casin intol requires soya or hypoallergenic formula.

peachey - did you ever try goats milk? apparently it i s a different type of casein.

also do you knlow any iron fortified gfcf cereal suitable for 8 mth baby to pick up?