Testing The (Milky) Waters

I started pumping 2 days after Julia was born. Partly to help with "flat" nipples, and partly to start building my freezer stash of breastmilk for Julia when I went back to work. When I first attempted to live dairy-free, I threw out several bags of breastmilk that I had saved. I know, Horror of Horrors! I dumped that precious liquid down the drain! When I finally figured out how to truly eliminate dairy from my diet (including the hidden dairy) I decided to keep that breastmilk, put it in a separate labled Ziploc bag, and save it in the deep freezer. Here's why: When it is time for me to test and see if Julia can tolerate dairy, rather than me eating dairy and Julia having to deal with the effects for days or weeks, I give her a bag of the "dairy milk" each day and see how she reacts. That way if she doesn't tolerate it I can stop immediately and she doesn't have to deal with the after-effects. So here's a word to the wise: Keep the diary milk!!!! Don't dump that precious liquid! Hopefully someday your little one will be able to drink it.

According to Kellymom.com, "many dairy-sensitive babies outgrow their sensitivity by 6 - 18 months, and most outgrow it by 3 years." Friends who have had children with diary sensitivies have told me that their children seemed to grow out of it between 6 and 9 months.

I first tried to test and see if Julia's tummy had matured enough to handle dairy when she was 6 months old. I gave her one "dairy milk" bottle per day while she was at daycare. I didn't notice any changes in her behavior - no increased crying, no apparent tummy ache - for the first day. She never acted like she didn't feel well. Our only clue was Julia's diaper. She started having huge blowouts. And I mean HUGE. All over her back, down the sides, on whatever she was sitting on. Our daycare provider was (and still is) wonderful about it. Then it progressed to multiple times per day. I ended up having to send 5 different changes of clothes because I never knew how many times she would need to be changed. We only did the dairy milk for 4 days that week. We tried again when she was 7 months old and had the same issue. I tried changing diapers and going up a size but still no change. The good news is that she doesn't appear to get the rashes or show outward signs of discomfort, but the blowout situation can't be pleasant for her. We're going to try dairy milk again very soon, so keep your fingers crossed!

Julia's Symptoms

As I said in an earlier post, Julia cried all the time. If we stopped walking and bouncing her, or if it was really bad, stopped using the hair dryer, she would cry. On a positive note, I lost 27 lbs of pregnancy weight in 6 weeks. I had to literally bounce with her all day long, except when she was sleeping. Julia would stretch her legs out and pull them in, over and over. And she would have awful nights that would progressively get worse. She would cry in her sleep, moving her head back and forth and kicking her legs. It would start at around 1 - 2 am and get progressively worse for the rest of the night(morning). Julia was regularly waking up every 1 - 2 hours, sometimes more often. She is still not the world's best sleeper, but she doesn't usually go for less than 2 hours anymore. Julia seemed to get a slight rash around her mouth, and a circular rash on her bottom. Since the pediatricians never seemed to believe me, I haven't brought it up at any more of her appointments. From my research, i think Julia's issue is more of a sensitivity than an allergy, but she has never been tested.

For those of you would prefer a bulleted list of symptoms, here you go...

• excessive crying, inconsolable crying
• pulling legs in and stretching them out
• excessive gas
• rash around the mouth
• rash around the anus
• poor sleeping
• crying while sleeping
• "writhing" while sleeping
  

A Not-So-Helpful Pediatrician

I did not find that our pediatrician's office was very supportive. When Julia was 2 weeks old, one of the pediatricians in the practice told me to cut out dairy. She did not explain what that meant. I probably should have known, but didn't, so Julia's discomfort continued. At Julia's 1 month appointment, the second pediatrician in the practice told me that the likelihood that she was allergic to (or sensitive to) dairy was extremely small and that I should go back on dairy. I was nervous but figured my doctor should know, right? I had a slice of pizza the following night. Julia's crying got worse again. After about a week, I went back on my uninformed dairy free diet. Some improvement, but not much.

At Julia's 2 month appointment I saw the third pediatrician in the practice. He said that the likelihood that Julia was allergic or sensitive to dairy was very small. I disagreed, but he was not to be convinced. So I decided to figure out this thing on my own.

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10/16/09 I just found the following website in which a breastfeeding mom shares her experiences with a baby with a dairy allergy/sensitivity and the lack of support from her pediatrician. On one hand it's good to see that I'm not alone in my experience, but on the other hand, I'm sad to see that pediatricians out there aren't more well-versed on this issue, or supportive of breastfeeding.

Crying All The Time

Our pediatrician told us our daughter Julia had colic. She cried all the time without regard to day or night. Our only help was to use tips we learned from the Happiest Baby on the Block (Which I highly recommend): swaddling Julia, using white noise (a hairdryer worked best for us) and walking around bouncing her. Even then she cried more than the average baby. i wasn't convinced that "colic" was the answer and that we would just have to accept the fact that our baby was crying all the time.

When Julia was 2 weeks old, one of the pediatricians in the practice suggested that I cut out dairy from my diet. "Fine," I thought, "easy enough." WRONG! I thought that cutting out dairy meant no butter, cheese and milk. I had NO idea how many things have dairy or dairy derivatives in them. This took me a whole month to realize, so while Julia seemed to feel a little better, she was still crying an awful lot. When Julia was about 2 months old I finally figured out what did and did not have dairy in it, and within 4 days there was a dramatic decrease in Julia's crying spells. It took about 3 weeks for all of the dairy to get out of my system, but by the time she was 3 months old, Julia was like a different baby. Some may say that it was really colic all along, since colic is supposed to start getting better at around 3 months, and maybe that had something to do with it, but I believe that if I had understood how to cut dairy out of my system earlier on, it still would have made a big difference. Even now (Julia is almost 8 months old) when I give her milk I pumped when I was not cutting out dairy (I call this my "dairy milk" stash) she has issues. I'll get to that in a later post.

Introduction

This is my first attempt at blogging, but I thought I would share my experiences in dealing with being a breastfeeding mom with a daughter that has a dairy sensitivity/allergy. My intention is to post tips, questions, answers, websites and the like so others may learn from what I have gone through.

Let me start by saying that if you are a breastfeeding mom whose child has a dairy sensitivity/allergy, you will survive! You can eliminate dairy from your diet and survive. I've been doing it for 6 months and counting, and I used to be a cheese fanatic. (And hope to be again some day!)

I hope this blog will help other mothers out there who have been experiencing similar issues, and you'll find this is a resource to help you through.

Rebecca