Hi everyone, this is my first post. I've read and loved HelloBee for over a year now but am usually too shy to comment.

Short question: For any moms who have kids with MSPI or FPIES, how old was your child when your allergist/ped allowed you to trial the child on soy and dairy?

Long, LONG backstory (sorry!): I started solids with my daughter, H, when she was 6 months old. We did bananas, avocado, peas, pears, and baby oat cereal without issue for several weeks. I would feed her solids some days and not other days. I followed the theory that babies stop eating when they're full, so for any meal of solids, I'd keep feeding her until she turned her head or closed her mouth to the spoon. One Saturday when she was 7.5 months old, she refused to breastfeed immediately before breakfast, but I decided to feed her solids anyway. She ate a TON: an entire pouch of spinach/pear/pea, some avocado, and about 1/4-1/2 cup (total volume) of baby oatmeal mixed with my expressed milk. I nursed her down for a nap, placed her in her swiftly moving swing, and left. She woke about two hours later, and I picked her up. She opened her mouth and puked all over me. She puked 4-5 more times, and she was upset by the vomiting, but it wasn't forceful or projectile. After she was done, she was slightly lethargic but otherwise happy and normal. An advice nurse at the pediatric urgent care told me that once they start vomiting, they usually keep going until their stomach is emptied. I told my ped about this vomiting, and she recommended no solids for a week and then to try one single food again. So the next Saturday, I fed her some more oatmeal, maybe 1/8 cup total, again mixed with my freshly expressed milk, nursed her to sleep, put her in her swing, picked her up after her 2 hour nap, and vomit again. She vomited another couple times, but it was over much quicker this time. The ped then referred us to an allergist, who said she probably had reflux but could possibly have fpies to oats. My daughter had a skin prick test and was negative on everything (milk, soy, oats, egg, etc.) He advised us to slowly work up from a teaspoon of each type of food and to trial over 3-5 days. We scheduled a follow-up for 3 months later.

In that 3 months, I was very slow about every food I introduced, and she handled everything fine. At that appointment, when she was 10 months old, I asked if we could try oats again, and he said he'd rather wait and that he'd like us to wait until a year old to try her on milk or soy. We scheduled a follow-up at a year. She continued to do well with every food we tried.

At the year follow-up, I was really looking forward to being able to trial her on dairy and soy. She was dropping in percentiles, and the ped had advised us to give her butter since she wouldn't eat any food I added oil to. At this point, she was doing great eating almond butter, brown rice, avocado, coconut, egg, strawberries, green beans, peas, many other fruits and veggies, and turkey. I also wanted to stop with the 3-5 day trials with non-highly-allergenic foods because it was taking so long to add a new food. I wanted her to be able to eat table foods with the family. The allergist said no, no trialing her on dairy/soy, but that he'd do a patch test on her. Three separate visits and $150 in co-pays later, we go back to see that she had ZERO reaction to soy, dairy, or oats. I was excited again, thinking I could start doing slow trials on these foods. Nope, said the allergist, that patch test doesn't really mean anything. Let's wait until she is 5-8 YEARS old before we do dairy/soy. And also, you need to start doing trials on other new foods for an entire week. After much questioning on this from me, he said he would do a trial in-office on her on dairy/soy when she was 3yo if I insisted on it but that he'd make me sign a bunch of paperwork that says she could die about 5 times in it. He said we'd also need to stay at the office for 8 hours after ingestion. I was flabbergasted. She hadn't had any kind of reaction to food whatsoever since her original vomiting episodes at 7 months. She was now 14 months and eating tons of different foods! Babies who do have FPIES to oats have a 50% chance of reacting to dairy/soy, but he originally thought she probably had reflux! She's never directly eaten/drank any dairy/soy, but she also never had ANY typical intolerance reaction, like blood in the stool or congestion, to the copious amounts of dairy/soy I ate while nursing her. She did have big-time reflux as a small baby (I couldn't even lie her flat for quick diaper changes), but that stopped completely by 9 months.

I want to get a second opinion, but I also want to know if anyone else's doctor recommended waiting SO LONG to trial dairy/soy and if they were instructed to do an in-office trial of 8 hours when they did. My baby is now 14.5 months. Thank you so much for any input!