Can I breastfeed my 6 years old !

[Mummiessss]

My child while he was breastfeeding he was healthy. He had eczema but was healthy from age 0-2 years old. After 2 years old stuff started going south when we introduced cows milk. He developed diarrhoe and then chronic constipation. Now he is in milk alternative and have severe stomachache, looks pale and we just find out his calprotectin is slightly high ( they will repeat it in 2 weeks to make sure it’s due to infection and not bowel disease) . He suffered so much from when he was 2 years old till now ( hospital admission for Klean prep, movicol disimpaction and now he has severe stomach cramp). His belly cramps when he goes for a poop and he is not constipated anymore so we stopped movicol. But since we introduced milk alternative (oat and concunt) he still have severe pain and now the gut inflammation freaked me out.
I have newborn, I was thinking to express milk and reintroduce breastfeeding milk to him and cut off alternative milk and yougurt ?
has anyone done this before. I searched all the forum and I cannot find someone who thought of this

( I was eating dairy while I was breastfeeding him when he was young and he never reacted )

@menopausalfart what were exactly your symptoms when you were a child please ?

Read my other comment. Sick of people not reading it. And no it's not normal to breastfeed a 6 Yr old

OP says she’d express

We used goats’ milk. My son could tolerate that, but not cows’ milk.

Constant stomach aches, always constipated, very little weight gain (I've always been very slim. People always commented on the fact that I looked pale and sickly.

I’ve never seen a thread in which so many people didn’t bother to read the OP! If people are too busy to read the OP, then don’t post at all. It’s not compulsory.

I take Salofalk enemas now which work really well for me. I also have colonoscopies every few years.

If you child has one autoimmune disease the chances of them having others at some point in their life is certainly increased compared to someone with no autoimmune diseases.

OP, Layer Origin sell human milk oligosaccharides.

It’s exactly the same sugar you find in breast milk.

it feeds bifidobacteria which is good for your gut. When you stopped breastfeeding your child stopped gaining this boost of bifidobacteria.

all people with autoimmune conditions have low bifidobacteria.

at 6 your child should have still quite a lot of bifidobacteria in their gut but it seems like yours probably does not.

Rather than normal, I think you mean: It's natural, but not common.

sorry to hear your little one’s been having such a tough time – it sounds really horrible for both of you. It makes sense that you’d want to go back to something that once worked, especially if you noticed he was healthier back when he was breastfed.

Of course, BM alone wouldn't be enough on its own for a 6 year old, so he'd still need other food items and it could be something there that will still trigger this reaction.

Expressing some milk for him could be worth discussing with a GP, nurse practitioner etc, as it’s definitely an unusual situation. It might be helpful to chat with them to make sure that his nutritional needs will still be met. Plus there could be something in BM that triggers his bad tummy too - he might have developed this issue as he got older and his immune system has become more active.

They might also suggest doing a stricter elimination diet to figure out exactly what’s triggering his tummy issues (although this is tricky if he is underweight).

Keeping up with diary of what he eats and any symptoms he has following the different foods could give you a clearer picture of what’s going on and you can show it to a gastroenterologist if this is something he doesn't grow out of.

I think before reintroducing BM, I'd try eliminating gluten and lactose completely and sticking to meat, fruit and veggies as much as possible, avoiding stuff like factory processed cereal that could be contaminated. If that helps, you can slowly introduce food items one by one. But it's best to get a GPs advice because he needs to be getting enough calories.

He is not constipated anymore 😭 the constipation was caused by consuming diary. Also I feel like he got worst after repeated disimpaction, it stripped off all his gut microbiota.

It's really not natural. Imagine it friends found out. Would get bullied for it

@Mummiessss My DM never stopped giving me dairy. This was the 1970s when dairy made up a lot of my diet! I know a lot of people with IBD who can't tolerate it though, along with a ton of other foods. It's different for everyone though. My gastro nurse says that diarrhea is more common with IBD, something I never get.

I can't see a problem with giving him expressed breast milk, however, it's not a sustainable solution and you need to get to the bottom of what is causing his issues in the long term.

has the dietitian mentioned that soya often cross reacts with dairy allergy. Cut both.

he needs a source of calcium - this can be in supplement form though.

coconut could be a second allergy.

(not qualified, I have a dairy allergy and a child with a soya and dairy allergy.)

I think she was suggesting giving expressed breast milk.

Cows milk is......expressed cows milk.

So, basically, she would be giving expressed milk but from the same species

won't your 6 year old be embarrassed? surely he's old enough to feel self conscious about this kind of thing. And how will he feel in the future.

How would people know unless they told them?

I mean a glass of breast milk looks exactly like a glass of cows milk

So many people not reading the OP properly. Honestly in your shoes I would give it a try. You would have to work very hard to express enough on top of feeding your newborn though. It certainly won't do your son any harm and could be of some benefit.

I KNOW. I DID SAY EXPRESSED MILK IS FINE 🙄

Why does he have to know? It can just be milk out of the fridge, as it doesn't need it to be sterile like a baby it could be stored in an ordinary milk bottle.

Have you tried an elimination diet for other options? My youngest cannot tolerate coconut at all, we used to give him coconut milk as an alternative to dairy and soya due to allergies, as both his sisters have coconut milk but it turned out it was making him worse. Perhaps try removing one thing for 2-3 weeks, then reintoducing it and eliminating one other thing until you find the source of his discomfort.

It's not about other people. it's about whether the 6 year old, surely old enough now to understand where the breast milk comes from, would feel embarrassed or weird about drinking breast milk especially after a hiatus of several years? and as he gets older may feel even stranger about it. I mean he might feel ok about it now but in a year or two might feel real embarrassment as he gets older and realises that at 6 he went back to breast milk.

Maybe it’s not dairy then because dairy gets into breast milk if the mother consumes it. My friend had to go dairy free when breast feeding as her dd was intolerant. She said even processed ham contained dairy products so when you say you have cut it out, are you really sure as it’s in a lot of things that you wouldn’t even think about.

Yes of course you can but I don't think that's the issue here.
You need to get to the bottom of what is making him so poorly, it isn't simply switching from bf especially if you atr dairy and he weaned ok.
When he had a coeliac screen was he eating gluten regularly? Gluten avoidance causes a false negative. I work in gastro and I wouldn't be surprised if it's coeliac or ibd - they have a multitude of symptoms and you need to push for answers