anyone got any experience of dairy intollerance in a bf'ed baby?

[kindredspirits]

I may be clutching at straws but just after some general advice and opinions.
Arla is nearly 12 weeks old (where did that time go btw??!) anyhoo - she is on the whole a very happy baby, however she does get periods of colicky crying which seem directly related to stomach ache - she also has the weirdest nappies I have ever seen - like a yellow foam, these generally explode and if I don't catch it in time will go out the top of the nappy.
She's not massively sicky - certainly not in comparison to DS who had reflux and my granddaughter (6 months) who pukes like she's auditioning for the exorsist! lol

For the past few weeks she's had longer bouts of colic - and I think it may be related to the fact that I've started to have cereal/milk for breakfast rather than toast - I don't tend to have milky tea/coffee etc so its only milk in the morning, and then this afternoon I was having an ice cream and she grabbed a handful and shoved it in her mouth and prompty threw up.... that may be because she isn't close to starting to wean and she shocked her system - but does anyone have any experience of milk intollerance in a baby, and does it sound to you like similar symptoms?

Sorry its long - I'm waffling a bit but my mind is all over the place! lol

[loocyloo]

no experience of my own, or actual advice

my friends DS was intolerant to dairy ... he was given a bottle of formula at about 12 weeks and had a BIG reaction - swelling, the lot. from then on, he seemed to react to my friend eating anything dairy, so she ended up going dairy free, as he was breastfed. this was on the advice of doctors.

he'd had very smelly, explosive nappies ( actually still did till he was about 3 and toilet trained :eek: ) and always looked very pale and pasty looking.

he has been having cows milk/dairy since he was about 3 1/2 - 4 yrs and is now fine, and actually looks a look healthier.

[Blaze]

My DS & Youngest DD are lactose & soy intolerant! When breastfeeding I had to have a lactose & soy free diet ...& then a special formula. Does sound as if Arla may be lactose intolerant due to the consistency of her stools ...does her stools give her bad nappy rash or kind of burn her skin? (This is a classic symptom)! All you can do is initially give her colic drops & see if that helps (I recommend Colief) ...& adjust your diet & see if it makes a difference. HTH x

[Pipsqueak]

Yes James was/is a lactose intolerant child and was as a b/f baby.

I knew there was something wrong because he wasn't feeding well or absorbing the milk and his weight dropped of seriously scarily. He puked a lot and had the trots - sour milk smelling and like Blaze said.. it seemed to 'burn' his bum area, even the tip of his tail.


I chopped and changed my diet around and cut out my out my own diary/milk intake but that didn't work.
The HV was useless and told me I was imagining it and to carry on B/F'g even though my 8lb born baby was down to 4.5lb.
The doctor however agreed that I needed to experiment on other milks but to avoid soy if I could because by introducing soy could be creating another intolerance or allergy. We were referred to the peadatrician and they monitored James and reitereated about the soy. Luckily he is not big time intolerant and can have a teeny bit of normal diary every so often although he does pay a price - sore tums, runs etc - he call it his diary sores! lol

James is now 7 and stilll lactose intolerant of course but he is learning to manage it for himself. He avoids dairy for the most part - we try to use the Lactose Free products and if he does have a treat of dairy - proper ice-cream, the milk cartons in class (school are crap at remembering he has lactose intolerance) he just 'adjusts' his intake.

[uf353432]

Just remember that any changes you make to your diet will take up to 2 weeks to present themselves in your milk supply and the benefits to you lo. So don't give up if you don't see results immediately pet

[tulip0803]

My friends daughter in lactose intolerant along with a host of other allergies/intolerances. Like Pip's son she was also intolerant to soy. My friend went on a lactose/soy/egg/tomato/orange (and many other things) free diet on the advice of the hospital so that she could continue to bf.

Before you change to other things ask to be referred to the peadiatric unit at the hospital to make sure that you do not make changes that could make it worse or cut something that you do not need to.

Good luck to you and Arla x x

[jumpinjen]

My baby had this in the early months too. I was first told it was poor latch at the breast leading to him taking down air and causing wind and bubbly poo (you could literally hear and feel the bubbles in his tummy!). It turned out though that we both had thrush - me in my milk ducts and him in his mouth. i thought the white coated tongue was just milk residue but apparently not. I took a tablet to clear my thrush and he had gel ( safe from four months old) and it cleared up in 48 hours - the difference was amazing! We haven't got rid of it completely as every 6 weeks or so he becomes 'colicky' again and i notice pain in my breast and we go through the treatment again, but there is nothing stronger that i can have whilst still feeding him. You could speak to a breast feeding councellor to ask them - he was making a 'clicking' noise as he fed too which is apparently a sign of oral thrush - I googled a few links and read up on it and it all slotted into place for me. I have since discovered he hates chilli peanut plavoured breast milk!! He refused to feed all day til he was really hungry poor love - I haven't touched them since!!
Hope you get sorted soon, Hugs, Jen x

[kindredspirits]

thank you for all your replies - i don't think it can be thrush as her tongue is pink all the time, even straight after a feed.
I have whittled it down to either lactose intollerance and/or problems of over supply in my milk - she tends to cough at the breast and i squirt everywhere so wondering if thats not helping - over the weekend i have tried to block feed so that she is getting more hindmilk, but its not made a difference so far.

going to try and see a gp tomorrow! :thumbsup:

[kindredspirits]

OK so GP pretty much rubbished me and said babies do poo a lot :rolleyes:
told me to come back in 4 weeks and to speak to the HV if I need help feeding. he also said not to cut dairy out my diet as it wouldn't help.

so me and DH went to costas and I had a latte - 6 hours later she is so hysterical you'd think i was torturing her (and on the whole she doesn't cry much)
the only other time she has cried like that was last week (after we'd visisted costas again) and she was so bad i took her to the drop in centre as i thought she was really badly injured.

so 2 big milky coffees make her scream blue murder - i'm cutting out dairy for a fortnight and then will gradually re-introduce small amounts to see how much she can tolerate. :thumbsup: then i'll see a female GP with a bit of a history to explain .

[Blaze]

You need to cut out for about 3 weeks minimum ...it'll take 2 to get the lactose out of your system ...then the 2-3 week you should see a difference x

PS Be aware that lactose is in a lot of medicines including some vaccinations!