Going Dairy-Free (DF) – Part Two:My Dairy-free Journey

Going Dairy-Free (DF) – Part Two: My Dairy-free Journey

The day my fourth child was born, I took a long swig of my milky tea, swirled it around in my mouth, savored it and then tipped the rest out. Three of my four children had so far been intolerant to dairy and it was a fair bet that my new daughter would be too.

This is an account of the times I have gone dairy-free.  If you are considering this too, please discuss your concerns with your doctor and your pediatrician. There may be a reason why it is not appropriate for you to go DF for your own health. Your baby may also need a treatment for reflux in conjunction with your dietary changes.

When my first daughter was born, we struggled for six weeks with silent reflux – screaming, crying, arching back, refusing to feed, before someone (maybe Dr Google) suggested going dairy-free. We had tried so many things up to this point – gaviscon, tilting the bassinet, feeding schedule changes, warm baths, but nothing had given much relief and the problem seemed to be getting worse. Within 3 days of going DF, we definitely saw an improvement, but I still didn’t really understand what being DF really meant. I thought not drinking milk, cutting out the cheese and switching from butter to margarine would be sufficient. It took a few weeks to learn the ropes properly, but when I got serious, started reading labels, eliminated hidden dairy and went truly DF, what a difference! My grouchy, grumpy, oh-my-what-have-we-done baby turned into a delightful, happy, rarely ever cries baby. It was bliss, and I finally started to enjoy being a parent.

Her reflux was so well controlled with a DF diet and being put on ranitidine, that it was easy to slip up or to think, just this little bit of dairy won’t hurt. Once I ate a few pieces of garlic bread without thinking about it. We had three days that reminded us exactly why I was DF. However, slowly at around six months I started to reintroduce dairy into my diet.  I started with hidden, cooked dairy and when she tolerated that, moved on to larger amounts and more obvious, raw dairy. The day I had my first tea with milk again was bliss. At nine months, I introduced her to dairy in her food. We started with hidden dairy, and then yogurt and hard cheese. She took to this fine and was drinking cow’s milk at around 12 months (Though at nine months I was pregnant again, and found being DF, breastfeeding and pregnant so soon too hard on my body, and gave up breastfeeding at 11 months and returned to dairy).

My son was sadly born with health complications (another story for another time) and spent his time in the NICU where he was exclusively tube-fed breast milk that I pumped. My first daughter’s dairy intolerance was just about the last thing on our minds at that time, but after a few weeks in NICU he started getting a very distended, swollen stomach over about six hours. To the point the doctors were doing x-rays to check the anatomy of his stomach and discussing a diagnosis of bowel conditions, to find that it was only gas. The swollen stomach was then followed by a huge green mucous-y nappy explosion, and the problem resolved for 24 hours, at which point the cycle began again. After four or five cycles, each time worse, we remembered how dairy intolerance had affected our first child, and discussed it with his neonatologist. The doctors were a bit dismissive of the idea of me going dairy-free, but agreed I could try it. (Probably to pacify a difficult parent without actually thinking it would make a difference, but whatever!)

Within a few days, the swollen stomachs had resolved, and his bowel problems reduced considerably over the next two weeks. It was enough to confirm in my mind the validity of his dairy intolerance, and his doctors were pleasantly surprised at such an easy fix.  Because of the lack of a milk pasteurizing unit, I then had to throw out over 12 L  (>400 oz.) of expressed breast milk freezer stash, and started building a new stash from scratch. Any pumping mother who has accidentally knocked over her pumped milk will have an inkling of how difficult this was, and the despair this caused me (and the hospital lactation consultant).  With his worsening health problems, I never reintroduced any dairy (hidden or else) and we were never given a chance to see at what point he might have grown out of his dairy intolerance.

When my beautiful rainbow baby was born 19 months later, I had already considered whether to go dairy-free from birth, but an emergency c-section meant I struggled to get my milk to come in, and was in need of the extra sustenance dairy provides.  Hospital food is fairly restrictive at the best of times, let alone if you remove dairy from it. However on development of the tell-tale reflux symptoms at around three weeks, I began my dairy-free journey for the third time. This, in conjunction with a pediatric appointment for ranitidine, dramatically reduced the projectile vomiting and reflux. By seven weeks she was sleeping beautifully and the spillage was down to levels well-controlled by bibs and burp clothes, rather than towels and buckets. I started to add dairy back into my diet around 6 months, but it did take longer this time, and she was unable to tolerate any dairy (yogurt, cheese) directly in her diet until after 12 months. I breastfed her until 16 months at which point she was able to drink cow’s milk without issue.

My fourth baby is currently 5.5 months old and dairy-free from birth. So far, she shows no signs of tolerating any dairy through my breast milk, as any attempts to introduce hidden dairy have been pretty awful.  I hate to think what our first few weeks might have been like had I not been dairy-free.

And as for me, I am developing a taste for black tea.

If you have already consulted your doctor, and would like to know more about going dairy-free, find all you need to know to get started here.
 

Check out the entire Going Dairy-Free series:
Part One - The Essentials
Part Two - My DF Journey
Part Three - Making a DF Diet Work for You

Coming soon: Hidden dairy and other possible pitfalls, the science of going DF and my favorite DF recipes

Make sure you follow me, and don't miss out. 

Have you made the decision to go dairy-free?  How did you find it? Did it make a difference to your baby’s well-being? Please share your experiences with us