No Moo For Me...



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 The inevitable has happened- my baby daughter's pediatrician dropped the no milk bomb on me at her one month check-up.

For a little history here, both my four year old son and two year old daughter had milk allergies as infants. With my son, when we saw the blood in his stool, his doctor sent us to a specialist who told me to cut the milk from my diet and to have my son's stool checked to verify that the blood was gone. It was (after a few weeks on a restricted diet) so from then until my son turned one I avoided anything with dairy in it like the plague. When my daughter had blood in her stool, her doctor had me cut the milk out of my diet again and like magic the blood was gone. I nursed both kids until they were each a year old and luckily they both outgrew their allergies by then.

My newborn daughter has been really gassy and fussy lately and when I brought this up to her doctor (the same one as my other two kids) she looked at me with that look like you probably don't want to hear what I'm going to say. Since my other two children had milk allergies she recommended that I cut out the milk from my diet to see if my daughter feels better. Ugh- right before Christmas... I was going to wait until after Christmas, selfishly putting myself first, but after a gassy/fussy fit from my daughterI decided that I can't put her through any more discomfort just so I can devour a whole cheesecake on Christmas day.

The good news is that since restricting milk from my diet on Monday she seems to be less fussy and gassy, not perfect but much better. I am so happy that such a simple thing is making her feel better and not being able to have any milk products until at least November 10, 2012 (when she turns one) doesn't bother me at all. Because I've done this twice before I am prepared and know exactly what I can and can't eat. It is also a bit on a win win for me because it forces me to eat better which means my family will eat better and as an added bonus I will lose the baby weight way faster. I am very grateful that I am breastfeeding because if I had to buy the special formula for babies with milk allergies it would have cost a ton of money. You hear that husband, my boobs are saving you tons of money!

Throughout the next year I will most likely be posting about the kinds of foods I will be eating and what kind of substitutions I will be making in recipes to accommodate my "new" food allergy. I know that there are a lot of others moms out there who are in the same boat as me as well as others with new found milk allergies and I want everyone to know that it is not the end of the world- there are lots of great tasting foods out there that you can still eat (just not cheesecake, which kind of sucks).