Weaning - Allergens

[Rose1999]

Hello, please can you advise me on how to introduce allergens to my 6 month old baby?

For instance, if I wanted to test dairy first, would I put some full fat milk into some weetabix, try a bit of cheese, natural yoghurt too maybe and then wait for a few days? Or would that be too much exposure?

I'm so confused and worried 😟

Is there a history of allergy in your family? Is your child breast or bottle fed as infant formula is cows milk based.

I dont think you need to overthink things. Give the cereal with milk, give yoghurt and cheese. No need to wait a few days.

There's no history and she's been ebf x

Unless you've got allergies in the family then it's not really something to worry about.

Just crack open and enjoy the fun and mess of real food.

OP have you checked out any of the weaning resources out there? I'd recommend Solid Starts. A wealth of information.

If there’s no history I’d take a relaxed approach to most of the generic foods. The only ones I really isolated were egg and nuts during introduction phase. So offering egg on its own, peanut butter, almond butter and other nut butters etc. Id give a small amount of nut product and give it a few days before trying the next one so i could pinpoint which one if there was any adverse reaction. I then carried on offering those little and often and still do but all seems fine so far, my one year old is a literal dustbin!

Unless you're dairy free yourself, you'd likely know by now about a milk allergy so you're safe enough there.

Just be sure to introduce allergens through the gut rather than the skin, so don't do the thing of rubbing peanut butter on the skin before giving it as food - we know now that actually increases the risk of an allergy.

Is this a new thing. Sorry but this didn't even enter my head with my 4. Why do babies need nuts.

If there’s no family history of allergies, just go for it.

DS loved peanut butter on toast at that age.

Delayed exposure increases the risk of allergy. It's thought that one of the reasons for the massive increase in food allergies is the delay in weaning until 6 months.

Doesn't need to be a big concern for most families, but worth ticking the higher risk allergens off and continuing exposure.

(I say this as someone who didn't pay much attention to this, likely exposed my DD to peanuts through broken eczema skin while breastfeeding her and then discovered she was allergic at age 4. 🤦 If I'd been a bit better informed there's a chance we wouldn't be bringing epipens everywhere with us.)

Give it early in the day and when your GP surgery is open and just give normal amounts in food.
If you are particularly nervous do it when you have some emotional support.
We had partly identified my daughters allergies in weaning and this was the only precaution we took even knowing she had food allergies. The fear is worse than the reality. Take a deep breath and do the scary thing anyway!