Help needed - Weaning a dairy intolerant baby with finger foods only

Waxy_Bean

A bit of a challenge for you all!

My son is 7 months old and we've been baby led weaning him for the past month (i.e. finger foods only, and letting him feed himself). However, we have discovered that uncooked dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, cream and butter) bring him out in a severe contact rash (we don't think he's actually consumed enough to know if they would upset his stomach) and that dairy in products (i.e. in homemade rusks) worsens his eczema. We're waiting for a referral to a paediatric allergy specialist (and hopefully further down the line also a nutritionist to help with weaning) but in the meantime have been told to avoid all dairy, both in its raw state, cooked and in products.

He's still breastfed as he has the same contact rash to formula (and my GP won't prescribe soya based formula until he has seen a paediatrician) and is still waking up at night at least once as he's hungry (though he is still clearly gaining weight and in other ways a healthy baby).

So my dilemma is to try and find meals that:
(i) do not contact dairy in any shape or form
(ii) that he can feed himself (despite not having any teeth yet)
(iii) that are low salt
(iv) that contain lots of calories to fill him up (and try and help getting him sleeping through the night)
(v) that introduce him to a variety of tastes and textures

We've had plenty of roast dinners recently, but I think that my OH might leave me if I serve up roast parsnips again (though my son adores them!). And tonight, for example, we're having hm beef, carrot and kohl rabi stew with suet dumplings, roast potatoes and brocolli.

Other recent successes that he has managed to eat are:
grilled chunks of marinated meat or hm sweet potato falafel, with roasted vegetables, hm guacamole and pitta
grilled lamb chops with steamed veg and roasted sweet potato wedges
steak with hm potato wedges and steamed veg
hm beef meatballs with roasted pepper sauce and pasta

But lunches are a bit of a minefield and he often has leftovers from the night before, and breakfasts usually consist of mini shredded wheat moistened with breastmilk or ricecakes with nut butter or fruit spread and a piece of fruit.

So - lovely people, do any of you have any suggestions for either breakfasts, lunches or dinners that meet my above criteria please - and that preferably are purse friendly?

Thanks in advance
WB

meanmarie

Do you need a referral to put him on soy formula? It is available here in supermarkets. If he is still being breastfed, he is probably fine with water or diluted fresh juice to drink. My younger grandson showed tendencies of being dairy intolerant, (as was his mother as a small child). We found that he was only really affected if he had cow's milk products, soy, goat and sheep milk products were fine. It might be worth your while to try a small amount of some of these...such as goats cheese, obviously if it has a reaction you would not use again. My DGS is now 7 and doesn't seem to have any problem with dairy.

Best of luck with the weaning, I never heard of baby led weaning before....too old, but I think it is a good idea.

Marie

anguk

This may not be any help because I know absolutely nothing about "baby led feeding", I don't think that existed back when I had my kids.

My son was diary intolerant and I just gave him what we ate but mashed up and containing no dairy. For breakfasts he normally had porridge, weetabix or baby rice made with soya milk (I got that on prescription), he often had something like that for supper too so he didn't wake during the night hungry. I found that if I just fed him food I'd made myself there were no problems because I knew exactly what was in it.

Forgive my stupidity but how does baby eat lamb chops & chunks of meat if he has no teeth? I followed the standard feeding regime of mashing food up leaving it more and more chunky over time as teeth appeared. I think I would have worried too much about choking, plus I enjoyed making airplane noises & actions with the spoon.

BatCat

Hi,
We did a mix of baby led weaning and mush.
You have missed out so far on the baby powerhouse that is...
PASTA!!!
Pasta twirls (fusilli) can held in the hand and gummed quite well. Though cook them until they are reasonably soft. You could prepare them in either a simple tomato based sauce or just a bit of olive oil maybe with some garlic? Don't fear garlic, my sons used to eat whole cloves of it and still eat garlic bread like it's going out of fashion and they're under 4.
Also, egg noodles like you would have with a stir fry are worth a go, as well as spaghetti. I used to make a stir fry and then take out some vegetables and the kids would have sauceless stir fry with noodles and veggies (baby corn was a big favourite) as they could all be grabbed as finger foods.
Nigella Lawson has a recipe for minced turkey meatballs which apparently her kids adored (though mine did not).
Good Luck!
BatCat

Waxy_Bean

Thank you for your responses.

Given that my gp is reluctant to prescribe soy based formula (because she reckons it should be done under the supervision of a specialist, because of the possibility of developing/having allergies to soy) I'm happy to wait to see a specialist and not buy it off the shelf - I'm not that fussed about continuing to breastfeed him although he needs to be on formula by September when I go back to work! I'm also loath to buy Neocate (which she thought was the best hypoallergenic milk) at £32 per tin!

Anguk - he has a good suck and chew at meat, his gums are pretty hard. A lot of it is spat out again, but some of it is swallowed, and he gets a lot of the goodness out of sucking the juices from the meat.

natlie

Hi
my daughter had the exact same reaction that you describe and the ezcema but her allergy is to eggs she saw a specialist had the !!!!! test - which is horrible and she has not eaten eggs (purposefully) since the one occasion she reacted with the rash, the reaction is due to the protein in the egg so she cannot eat duck eggs etc so I wouldn't give another type of dairy/milk until the intolerance is tested.

My daughter has epipend and her reaction gets worse every year to the test - they hope at some point it will improve - it may not but we don't know yet.

She has piriton for rashes - you can get allergy medicines for babies like piriton you may need this in case of emergency - if breathing problems develop for example.

I wouldn't worry about the weaning my daughter didn't eat much solid food until she was about 14 months - but she enjoyed pieces melon, pear, carrot sticks (cooked) butternut squash pieces, sweet potato, just chunks of veg from soup or cooked in a veg or chicken stock - you can get low salt baby ones in the baby food sections, I would stay away from strawberries as they can cause allergies and ezcema. I wouldn't give nut butter for the same reason

Rice is good and you can get a rice shaped pasta called orzo.

Annabel Karmel has some good ideas on her website and I would do picky foods for lunch like cucumber, ham, etc

HTH
Nat
x

Waxy_Bean

Thanks Batcat - we've actually given him pasta a few times and its a bit hit and miss, although a bit goes in - but we'll continue offering it to him. He actually adores garlic, just like his mummy! We had very garlicy ratatouille in the week, which he hoovered up - especially his favourite courgettes!

Thanks Natlie - its nice to know that others have had similar experiences, and come out the other side. Perhaps I'm getting too worked up on making sure he actually eats, after all the new thinking seems to be that "food before one is just for fun".

Mankysteve

My mums doctor suggesting when they found I was allergic to Milk was to use water instead, Iam not sure what she did in the end Ill be giveing her a ring tonight so I'll ask for ya, I also grew out of it pretty much still gives me a runny noise though.

PS his symptoms are not intolerance but allergic.

rachbc

I did blw with my dd but not dairy free but some ideas

brekkie
porridge pancakes! basically make porridge with breast milk or water and poor into a shaoolow container - as it cools it sets enough to cut into fingers or circles for lo to pick up
shreddies and as his pincer grip improves puffed wheat
toast fingers with nut/seed butter, sugar free fruit spread

lunch
roasted veg sticks
pasta twirls with thick sauces
falafel
avocado
omletees/ thick spanish omlette with veg in
savory pancakes and fritters make with bm/water instead of milk
rice cakes - cooked rice, veg and any left over ham/ meat and bound togethr with egg and fried in little cakes
hm chicken nuggets!

dinner tneded to be what we had

Triker

My youngest had exactly the same, including the rashes and eczema. She also got that reaction from eggs.


When I realised I put her on a soya milk based diet straight away, she was fine almost immediately, everything cleared up.

My doctor (at the time) very helpfully prescribed soya milk formula, saved a fortune.

Weaning her (I'm going back 12 years ) she had fruit, pasta, veg, I used to get the boots organic jars of food for when we were out and about, spinach seemed to be a particular favourite.

I would also get her soya puddings which she loved, alpro do a variety, again I recall chocolate being a particular fave.

Breakfast was babyrice or porridge with soya milk, she still loves porridge to this day.

Veg stew, mashed potato, spag bol mushed, went down well too.

If she had the slightest bit of cheese, egg or milk her face would come right up in a scarlet red rash :eek:, it looked quite alarming and I used to get some very funny looks when she had any of these reactions, usually if someone had given her chocolate or a dairy lolly or something.

Over the years I've slowly introduced eggs and dairy back and she's pretty fine with it all now.

Good luck with it all.

Triker

Waxy_Bean wrote: »

Thank you for your responses.

Given that my gp is reluctant to prescribe soy based formula (because she reckons it should be done under the supervision of a specialist, because of the possibility of developing/having allergies to soy) I'm happy to wait to see a specialist and not buy it off the shelf - I'm not that fussed about continuing to breastfeed him although he needs to be on formula by September when I go back to work! I'm also loath to buy Neocate (which she thought was the best hypoallergenic milk) at £32 per tin!

Anguk - he has a good suck and chew at meat, his gums are pretty hard. A lot of it is spat out again, but some of it is swallowed, and he gets a lot of the goodness out of sucking the juices from the meat.

Ask your Dr to prescribe it?