My new baby has been gassy. The lactation consultant said no need for me to change my diet, but the pediatrician said for me to try dairy free. I hate milk, so I thought no problem. But I can think of so many things made with milk. So now wondering what the scope of "dairy free" includes! Split pea soup made with cream seems obvious. Yogurts and chai tea lattes, too. But what about chocolate? Or rainbow sherbert? Anything else?
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My baby has a milk allergy and I can't eat anything with milk in it. If the label says "contains milk", we can't have it. I'd try being strict for 3 weeks and see if it makes an improvement. If it does, then try baked dairy (like a cookie made with butter). I hope you can just do dairy light--i miss cheese!
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It means literally dairy free. As the poster above said you need to check labels. Both my kids had dairy intolerance and you would be surprised at how many things contain dairy. I had to switch taco seasonings because the one we usually buy contained milk whey.
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Like they said, dairy is in sooooo much. But also- newborn's are gassy. And cranky. I would be hesitant to go all in on no dairy without trying other stuff first.
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We have a severe milk intolerance. Dairy free means COMPLETELY dairy free - read every label very carefully. Look for milk, whey, casein. Most chocolate, some sherbet, "cream of" soups, butter, coffee creamer, pizza, some bread, etc.
I am not sure I'd go dairy free just for gas but it depends. Personally I think dairy is tough for a lot of BF babies to digest and contributes quite a bit to reflux/colic/etc. but if my baby was only gassy, not sure I'd do it.
My son is 12 months, I am still BFing him and I am dairy/soy/nut free (and more for the first 5 months) since he was 2 weeks old. Soy is a lot harder than dairy. Dairy is doable!
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No dairy of any kind. Both of ours had MSPI, DS2 worse than DS1, and I had to go off everything. So many things that are processed have dairy. It definitely can force you to eat a more whole foods diet.
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Unlike lactose intolerance it's the milk protein, so even cheeses (like cabot cheddar) that are lactose free are off limits.
Its a major change. I have considered with both kids to help with fussiness/sleep but their doctor has always told me that in the absence of weight loss or obvious, extreme discomfort it's not worth it. Most likely cause of grassiness/fussiness is an immature digestive system and they will grow out of it.
It's tempting because I want to do something! -
@Silva: agree. I've read it's pretty rare unless there are some pretty significant issues. Just being gassy would not be enough for me to go through all the pain of cutting everything out. It would be nice to fix the Gas/constipation but I think it's more likely just part of being a newborn.
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so my husband was talking to his colleagues about how to help parents of babies with colic/fussiness/grassiness/etc. and I guess the "trick" (for lack of a better word) in their office is to give parents something to try. change nursing positions, hold upright, gas drops, cut dairy, cut soy, try Zantac.... And you have to try any one thing for two weeks. So, sometimes something will work but usually what "fixes the problem" is time.
The good news is - it will most likely get better! And probably soon!
The bad news is, you can try a bunch of random stuff or you can just wait it out- it's kind of a crapshoot. And honestly it's unlikely to be anything other than "babies being babies" -
For us, it meant every single dairy product, including some you wouldn't think of (like whey). You just have to get very good at reading labels. I also stopped eating stuff like goat's cheese because the proteins are very similar. It's really, really hard. If it's just gas, I would try other things first. My baby had green poops that eventually turned bloody and that's how we found out. Gas could be all sorts of things in a newborn.
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If it's just gas, I agree to wait, especially if baby is very young. You could be dairy-light (so no straight milk, yogurt, Mac & Cheese, butter on toast, etc but baked milk/butter in a cookie could be fine).
Both my kids had dairy intolerances. For my oldest I did dairy light. My second had bloody stools, so I went strict dairy free (no chocolate, muffins, ranch, I checked labels, etc) from age 2-6 months & then I started slowly phasing dairy back in. It was tough but not impossible. -
@Silva: yes exactly!
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When my Ped told us to try this (for gas and silent reflux), she said no need to go completely dairy free, but just eliminate the big obvious ones (milk, cheese, etc.) to see if it improved anything and then we would discuss next steps. Luckily, it did and as she got a little older I was able to reintroduce it again since it wasn't a severe allergy or intolerance.
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@Silva: I think this is so true. Our pediatrician would say, she's not losing weight, she doesn't have bloody stools, etc. - so it's probably just that she's a fussy baby. But, if you want, you can always try... And of course, we were desperate so we would try it! Nothing really worked except time - though general baby survival tactics like getting a swing she liked, long car rides, etc. got us through.
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Thank you, all of you!!! So I was right that going full dairy free is quite a daunting thing to do. Milk in taco seasoning???!!!
my baby doesn't seem to be uncomfortable often. We started giving her gripe water on Friday and now she poops like a champ! She oddly seems so relaxed during hiccups. And her toots... Well.. Maybe she will grow out of that. I'll start with dairy light in the meantime. Thank you all so much!!
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@agold: Just remember that if you literally couldn't move your own body, you'd have a lot of gas too
Once they start sitting up and working on scooting / crawling it naturally works itself out! Unfortunately gas is just part of being a baby most of the time.
my baby doesn't seem to be uncomfortable often. We started giving her gripe water on Friday and now she poops like a champ! She oddly seems so relaxed during hiccups. And her toots... Well.. Maybe she will grow out of that. I'll start with dairy light in the meantime. Thank you all so much!!
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