Weaning a baby with allergies in the family - am I taking it TOO slowly? Help appreciated!

[Malaleche]

DD2 is 8 m and 3 weeks old and was exclusively bfed till 6 (calendar) months. She and DD1 both have very dry, sensitive skin. Her sister developed eczema at 10 mo coinciding with the introduction of dairy into her diet. (I also went quite slowly weaning her).
DP and I both get hayfever (DD1 also has it now at 3.9 yo) and I have a slight intolerence to wheat and dairy but I eat them anyway. Bearing this, and DD1s eczema (which is ok now except for the odd localised patch) in mind I have been going very slowly with weaning DD2. Problem is, maybe too slowly. At present she eats only fruit and veggies and cereals. Mostly cooked and frozen by me but also fruit and veg Hipp jars, 4 or 5 a week.

She eats 3 meals a day plus 5 or 6 bfeeds in 24 hrs.

She eats:
baby rice
baby maize/corn cereal
baby oat cereal
rice cakes (no salt)
apple
pear
banana
apricot
pumpkin
peas
green beans
broccoli
spinach
carrot
corn
(Have been more or less following a weaning schedule for allergic infants that someone on MN linked me to).

I know about BLW but it's not the way I prefer to do things, she gets chunks of food to play with at 1 or 2 of her puree meals and eats some of it, today I gave her some butter beans out of our lunch and she had some plum and nispera with her sister.

My question is:
Since the problem for DD1 seemed mainly to be with dairy should I just go ahead and give DD2 everything else a non-allergic child would have at this age (except gluten)? Should I wait till 10 months to give her dairy? What about pulses?

I feel like we're stuck on a sort of plateau and I'm afraid to give her something which might spark off allergies but also don't want to deprive her of nutrients and variety. DD1s eczema was mainly localised on her ankles but gave us all a very unpleasant, traumatic few months till I gave in and got steroid cream after which we managed to keep it under control. We still have to do a lot of creams on both DDs and de-chlorinate the bathwater and use ecoballs for the laundry tho'.

Thanks if you got this far, there's nothing more boring than other people's DCs eating habits, but I would really appreciate any input you might have!

Well if it were me, and based on your history, I think I'd leave dairy and wheat until 12 months, but try 'milder' forms of gluten (eg oats) sooner.

I'd also introduce pulses now and meat, plus probably fish if there's no history of allergies to this.

I'd possibly (unless they are listed in the ingredients of the jars, whereby she's had them already) avoid the deadly nightshade family (tomatoes, aubergines etc) for another couple of months, or maybe give a bit now, but with nothing else new, to see if she reacts at all.

Pretty much everthing else I'd give now. The schedule you refer to, if it's the same one that I've seen before, is very limiting, and seems a little over the top IMHO.

Thanks cantsleep, she's already on baby oats. We dont eat much meat but i could give her fish. Am avoiding deadly nightshade fam. Have just pulled out DD1s baby scrapbook and she didnt eat anything except fruit, veggies, rice and oats till 10 1/2 months. Then she started on pulses, dairy, tomato etc. By 1 yr she was eating the same as us. She's always eaten well, never rejected anything, (till recently!) is still a chunky, well-built child now.

bump - anyone else got an opinion/experience on this?

bump

We have a family history of allergies too but I have read that there is now some evidence that there is a critical period to introduce wheat (not sure about dairy) 6-9 months, so intolerance actually increases if you haven't introduced it at this point. I was heartbroken when my DD now 7 months ezcema at 6 months, but the doctor (and me after research) think it was triggered by 2 virus infections in succession rather than introducing food, she was always going to get it despite me EBF.

I am not being too cautious, but do whatever you are comfortable with, BM will make up anything she isn't eating.

I have found a link from the bbc that says this:

Exposure to gluten - a protein found in wheat - in the first three months of life increased the risk of coeliac disease five-fold, the study of more than 1,500 children found

Children not exposed until they were older than seven months were also more likely to develop coeliac disease than infants exposed when they were aged between four and six months.

The recommendations are the same for the introduction of gluten to children with coeliac disease in the family, and previous studies have found that there is no benefit of holding off the introduction of gluten for longer than six months.

"Once gluten is introduced into the baby's diet, it is important that it is given on a regular basis so that symptoms are more easily recognised," she advised.

The full link is here: Gut problem link to baby weaning

Thanks Tapster and Seona - just lost the post i'd written but from the article looks like the problem with introducing gluten later is that its likely to be in larger amounts.
Will hold off the dairy till 10 or 11 months, try bread and pulses now and see what happens,
thanks everyone!

I would give her everything tbh

dd2 had horrible excema on her knees but I kept giving her evertyhign (was bullish about it being ofod related) and she grew out of it at 2

Enid - yes, knowing that i can always go the steroid cream route, much as i hate it, makes me less worried on one level but DD1 who had apparantly grown out of it has got an outbreak on her ankles now after getting hayfever for the first time and getting a raised rash all over, so it seems related.

Hello,

Don't have a huge amount of advice, but just wanted to say that we are in very much the same boat as you, in almost every way!

Dd has eczema on the backs of her knees, and has had very dry skin since birth, so we're also being fairly cautious about weaning - and she also has a mixture of purees with a bit of finger food for entertainment. I also have eczema and dh has asthma, so we would probably have been cautious anyway.

She eats much the same - 3 meals and 5 bf. And the list of food we've given her so far - she's seven months tomorrow - is almost exactly similar, except we haven't tried the corn cereal, and we get through loads of lentils (makes a great filler with veg!) and are about to try haricot beans and some other pulses.

I know what you mean about that list being v prescriptive, but I've also been using Susannah Olivier's book, What Should I Feed My Baby, which is excellent on allergies, and comes up with pretty much the same list of stuff at the same ages, so I'm a bit more convinced. And she is quite merrily stuffing her face with most foods (except avocado for some reason) and gaining weight, so it doesn't seem to be hurting.

The only thing we are not so cautious about is trying new stuff - I don't wait three days before adding something else new. Any new foods get fed to her for breakfast, so I can see if there's a reaction, and if not she will get something new the next day!

We're going to introduce oats at 9 months, I think, and hold off both wheat and dairy until a year. But not having bread or cheese does make finger food quite difficult. Dd gets through a lot of ricecakes...