Advice needed...weaning baby with milk allergy

[MrTumblesCrackWhore]

DD is 5 months and I want to start preparing a plan for weaning her at 6 months. She has a cow's milk protein allergy so cannot have any dairy until she is a year old.

She is currently on Nutramigen 1 and will move onto the follow on version at 6 months.

My plans are giving her the usual Annabel Karmel recipe mush, making recipes with Nutramigen 2 (although it smells like watery, acrid mashed potato so not sure how appetising it might be) etc.

I don't know if there is anything else I should do. I am also unsure of if I can introduce soya milk (not for main drink, just cooking) and perhaps give her soya yoghurts or other dairy free products you see in the 'free from' aisle in the supermarkets.

Advice very gratefully received...

My dd is six months and we've just discovered she has a cows milk allergy. I was a bit daunted when I found out as had plans of lots of cheese based meals but you can adapt things fairly easily.

Apparently a lot of children that are allergic to cows milk are also allergic to soya but so far I've used soya 'butter' without a problem.

You can also use oat milk in cooking but not rice milk although I can't remember the reason why rice milk is a no go!

Tescos have just started a range of own brand daily free stuff. I've just brought the hard cheese but haven't tried it yet. They do different flavoured soft cheese and yogurts too.

Good luck

Thanks so much. I thought I got a handle on weaning with ds1 but feel like a novice again. Ds1 loved all things dairy and still mainlines petit filous so it's all going to be quite different this time around.

Do you mind me asking how you found out about your dd's allergy? What were her symptoms?

I was the same, I'd forgotten everything from weaning ds. I did loads of reading up before starting weaning dd then the allergy thing totally threw me!

Dd was ebf until weaning so wasn't aware of the allergy at first, looking back though she was showing signs of cows milk protein allergy. She has eczema and was always windy and colicky but I just put this down to her being her. Oh once said "maybe we've just got a grumpy baby" :o Several trips to the gp just made me feel like I was overreacting .

The allergic reaction came after I gave her Philadelphia cheese on toast for lunch. She came out in hives a few minutes after smearing it over her hands and face. She also was a bit snuffley, cue major mummy panic and a trip to a&e where she vomited the small amount she'd eaten. Luckily she was fine quite quickly after having piriton.

We're currently waiting for a referral for allergy test, hopefully it won't show any other allergies. It's made me a bit more careful about introducing new foods, still haven't tried egg but she seems ok with wheat.

I was totally stumped as to what to feed her at first apart from fruit and veg but I'm starting to get more adventurous. It's not as restricting as I thought it was going to be. I just think of this as a new challenge! :)

That's useful thanks. DD was bf but I thought she was hungry so we started giving her top ups - not realising this was making her worse. We got into a vicious cycle as the more formula we gave her, the worse it got and by the time she was diagnosed (awake time had been spent either latched onto me or screaming) it was too late to go back to ebf :(

I think I'll go to the docs and ask for an allergy test too.

Perhaps consider more of a
BLW style - fingers foods etc. We were using this approach anyway when we discovered DS's allergies. It meant that instead of a 'mush' of various ingredients we added foods one or two at a time, which made it easier to pinpoint food he was reacting to.

Thanks say I don't know much about blw. I'll investigate.

Ds was diagnosed with dairy allergy when he failed to put weight on. I am still breastfeeding but at 8 months he also has 3 bottles of pepti-junior each day. Weaning has been fairly easy really, he has veg, fruit, porridge, chicken, beef, but not had eggs or fish yet. Also, we introduced each new food separately until we were sure it didnt cause a reaction. He has a bowl of mashed food which he likes to be fed (typical lazy boy!) but will feed himself baby biscuits, bread, fruit/veg pieces etc. He will drink the formula no problem, but won't eat food with it in so I use oatly milk for mixing with food. Not sure if it cooks ok as not tried it yet! I don't give him soya yogurts, not sure how good soya is for little boys.