Going dairy free?

Ok, I am finally ready to bite the bullet and go dairy-free so Claire can have some breastmilk.

We've been supplementing with formula since the hospital (now of course I know that that wasn't necessary but I didn't know much of anything in the beginning and they kept pushing it in the hospital). Anyway, Claire has a milk-protein allergy and I was so stressed in the beginning that I wanted to stop breastfeeding all together because I was pumping, breastfeeding and giving formula and it was crazy!

After we tried ten billion formulas, we discovered that Alimentum was the only thing that didn't make her cry or get a diaper rash. So we have been giving her only Alimentum and she's doing great. Athan has been getting all of the breastmilk.

But, I'm finally feel recovered enough from the super stressful first few months of twins and ready to go dairy-free so they can both have breastmilk.

So, today is my first day without dairy. How many days should I wait before I give her breastmilk again?

And... any advice on what to eat?? I am not a cook at all so I eat a lot of ready-made food sadly.

 

No worries, SnowPumpkin- I'm a junk food junkie myself. If I can do it, anybody can! :clapping:

If you've been 'dairy full', I'd wait at least a week. They say it takes about 2 weeks to get everything out.

Now as to what to eat- what are your favorite foods? Here's a few I ate a lot of/IMO dairy free staples.

Breakfast: eggs and toast with peanut butter, oj
(check bread thoughouly for casein/whey... Bakery type French/ Italian is ok... Canola flavored cooking spray is ok- the butter flavor spray is not)

Snack: Chips- Lay's or original potato chips are fine, or nuts
(again look for dairy, casein or whey in the labels).

$Lunch: Baked chicken breast brushed with olive oil and lemon pepper seasoning-McCormick is fine, Rice-A-Roni Rice Pilaf, baked potato topped with vegan butter, bacon, salt & pepper.
(use EarthBalance butter- any variety. I preferred soy free as most dairy substitutes are heavy in the soy).

Dessert: Soy or coconut based ice cream cone. My personal favorite: Purely Decadent Peanut Butter Zig Zag. (Carried by King Soopers, Kroger, Meijer, & Whole Foods, although if you like ice cream there are many varieties.)

Snack: Pretzels (any variety are usually fine) dipped in melted milk chocolate.
(King Soopers/Kroger carries a value bag of milk chocolate that has NO dairy in it. It's a white bag.)

Dinner: Anything Asian or ethnic. Asian food is particularly great because it doesn't really matter where you get it from, it does not have dairy in it.

Alternate Dinner: Steak, fries or sweet potatoes, corn.
(Use Earth Balance butter).

Dessert: Duncan Hines brownies have no dairy- neither do most of their cake mixes. Make a frosting with soy milk.


There were things I did not eat right away that I started eating as time went on: Pizza. Oh, pizza. It's probably my favorite food but I just couldn't eat it without cheese and was too depressed about it in the beginning to try. The VERY good news is that your taste buds actually change in about 6 weeks. So after a while, I tried a 'saucy cracker' as I called them. It's a self-rising bread dough ball (freezer section) which I let thaw. I then flatten it out, add pizza sauce, then toppings. Bake for 10 minutes at 400. It's not really pizza, but after about a month I didn't care.

The Texas Roadhouse has a great menu for food allergies (brought my own butter and cinnamon-sugar butter)- stay away from other American chains, though, like Applebee's or TGI Fridays- there is dairy is just about EVERYTHING.

Final tip: Before you eat out, check out www.godairyfree.com . It's the best.

Good luck & PM me anytime- it's hard but so worth it. :good:

 

Awesome!! Thank you so much. All of that info is great! And yeah, I'm very heavy on the dairy, mostly from ice cream and chocolate.

I know that after a few weeks it will be a lot easier once I've developed a habit. I am chocoholic and I went an entire year without eating one little morsel of chocolate so I know that I can do this, too.

And we have a Texas Roadhouse just two miles from our house. Yeah!

 

You can do it! I also had to go dairy free for my Katy. She's still dairy allergic, so we are all about dairy-free products in our house. Cheezewhiz has some great recommendations. Some additional things that are dairy-free and yummy:

* Amy's makes a super yummy roasted vegetable pizza that is vegan. I mean SUPER yummy
* Van's makes yummy dairy and egg free waffles
* Most cereals are dairy free -- use Silk Vanilla Soy Milk. It's good.
* Tofutti makes an excellent cream cheese. Seriously tastes like the real stuff (well, maybe not in a direct comparsion test ... but it's good!)
* Tofutti also makes AWESOME ice cream sandwhiches. Yummy!
* Tofutti also makes good sour cream. I use that to make dips for veggies and chips.
* Trader Joe's soy ice cream is really good. I love the chocolate and the mango/vanilla. Yummy!
* For quick meals -- sandwiches with dairy free bread, hot dogs, noodles with butter (I use Earth's Best, which is a vegan substitute)
* For fast food, McDonald's and Burger King burgers are dairy free.

If I think of more, I'll write again.

 

My DS is also on Alimentum but can tolerate trace amounts of dairy (like he shares a paci with his sister). If that is the case for your DD, then you might be able to eat things with very small amounts of dairy (like Hershey's special dark chocolate). Also check out Enjoy Life snacks, which you can get at grocery stores or online, and are very allergy friendly. They make some yummy chocolate chips.

 

I was dairy-free for 18 months for my DD...I have lots of suggestions but I wanted to mention that you should also be aware of soy. Many kids with a dairy allergy also have a soy allergy. I switched to all soy (milk, yogurt, etc) early on and my DD actually got worse (eczema, stomach pain). Turns out she is allergic to both (among other things) and her soy allergy was worse than her dairy allergy. So I've included some alternatives if you have to go soy-free also...

Bread-be careful of brands, read labels and find one that works. Most do have a bit of soybean oil, which I had to live with, but avoid those with soy flour/protein.

Hummus- great with crackers (again read labels) and veggies. I also would have a turkey and hummus sandwich for lunch every day, since I couldn't have cheese. I loved it!

Sheep's milk Feta- this was my saviour, I missed cheese so much. You have to search for true feta (do you have a Trader Joe's...I got a lot there, much less expensive than Whole Foods or similar). I mixed this into pasta salad (with black olives, 1red/1green/1yellow pepper, an onion, and Greek dressing...one of my favorite easy recipes), or just with cooked pasta and olive oil...added chicken or spinach if I felt motivated. This is still my daugther's staple when everyone else is enjoying mac 'n cheese...

Sorbet- with Cool Whip...does the trick if you have to avoid ice cream and soy creamy...although soy creamy isn't bad if you find she can tolerate soy.

Cake/muffins- Chocolate cupcakes...Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix with one can of pumpkin. Mix, cook on 350 for 20 minutes. So good! I add dairy-free chocolate chips for extra chocolate-ness! Dunkin Hines frostings are dairy free but not soy free. Or Duncan Hines Spice Cake mix with one can of pumpkin and some dairy-free choc chips... awesome pumpkin muffins. Great breakfast staple! I've been having a hard time finding canned pumpkin lately, but not sure if this varies in different parts of the country.

If you are a real chocoholic (as I am!), try finding true dark chocolate, 70% cocoa... make sure to read all ingredients, many (like Hershey's) dark chocolates still have dairy! I found 1lb blocks at Trader Joes and this was awesome...I'd have a couple of squares of it a day and it took care of my cravings.

I'd eat Irish Oatmeal every morning, for milk supply as well as nutrition. Healthy and easy to cook in the microwave. I second the Van's waffles, but only the blueberry...my kids still eat these.

Rice milk is a reasonable substitute, especially if you have to go soy-free and just want something to go in cereal or use in some recipes. We ended up giving my DD this with coconut milk her entire second year...great for healthy fat and calories.

I wish I could think of more! We are all about dairy-free still as my DD is still allergic, but both of my DD's also have an egg allergy and various others so some of my substitions are very severe. I second the eating of eggs for protein and fat...also an easy dinner option.

It's tough but you really do adapt quickly. I heard it takes 3 weeks to get completely out of your system, but I saw a huge difference with my DD in 3 days. I also supplemented wiht Alimentum for a while until we were able to drop the supplements. She did just as well on my allergen-free BM as she did on Alimentum, which made it really worthwhile!

Good luck and if I think of other quick, easy options I'll come back and post.

 

That's a good point. I didn't even think of that but they do share pacifiers and such so I guess she can!

 

read read read. Even if you've eaten some place before or bought a specific brand before, double check. Do not rely on what anyone tells you is dairy free. Not trying to take away from what places people are telling you on here is safe but things can change and places can vary. For instance I assumed like a PP that asian food was dairy free. My ds is severely allergic to dairy. Well we gave him some chinese food and ended up with bad hives. Did you know McDonalds french fries have dairy? Don't assume anything is safe. You can do it, it is hard but it can be done. I'm on my 2nd child having to go dairy free and my youngest is 13 months and still nursing full time. Good luck!

 

good for you!!! I have a friend who's been dairy and soy and something else free for over a year, and she's doing great with it! she found some yummy coconut ice cream she loves. and she found out she can have Oreos!

 

I was obsessed with Mint Oreos when I was dairy free!!!!

 

Sorry I didn't see this until now! Anyhow, my DD had a milk protein allergy and I used alimentum to supplement. I never stopped giving her breastmilk, so I'm not sure how long to wait per se, but I can tell you that I noticed a drastic difference in just 24 hours after quitting dairy. At that point she was on about 75% BM/25% alimentum. I found that I could eat dairy in a lot of things as long as it was cooked. I continued eating normal breads and ate thing with butter used in the cooking. I did avoid foods that had sour cream, cream of soups, cream cheese etc. Just thought I'd let you know that the severity of the allergy can really vary. DD was extremely fussy, like hysterical crying for hours on end and just stopping most dairy was enough for her. By 14 months she was able to transition to dairy, although I try to avoid giving her straight cows milk because that seems to cause the most trouble. We use a lot of goat's milk and she's ok with cheese, yogurt, etc for the most part. GL!

 

Thanks for all of your help, girls! I've been dairy-free since last Thursday and I put about 1.5 ounces of breastmilk in Claire's formula for daycare today just to test the waters. We'll see how it goes... If she reacts, I'll wait longer to give her anymore.

Both babies were getting breastmilk and NeoSure until about 7 weeks when Claire started to get really bloated and gassy. She was very colicky before that and would just scream her head off for hours.

We tried a lot of different formulas but I kept giving her breastmilk, too. After having her cry and spit up slime all over me for the 1,000th time after I bottlefed her breastmilk one night, I ran out and bought a can of Alimentum and only gave her that from then on. It was wonderful.

But my issue now is that my sweet little baby has the foulest, sewer breath ever from the Alimentum.

So I'm hoping breastmilk will help with that. Plus it's good for her so we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for all the suggestions and tips!