Dairy and Soy Elimination Experience?

martinimomma

I've posted this on the BF board, and am starting to lurk on the food allergies board, but I value the knowledge base right here on PAL so here it is again:

LO has reflux and Zantac is not touching it. Before moving to another med, the pedi has recommended complete dairy and soy elimination. I had cut back drastically but did not scrutinize every label on every thing... But now will do so and see if it helps poor little G's level of crying/shrieking/arching etc.

For those ladies who have gone this route, do you have any tips or advice? Any non-dairy non-soy replacement products that you've found handy to have or worth seeking out to make cooking and everyday life easier? DH does all the cooking in our house and he is already frustrated that most of our go-to dishes are off the menu and that I'm becoming "impossible" to feed. (just a little more stress in the house when it is needed least!)

Thanks as always for your experience and thoughts.

Jacquiemark

When DD was younger I had to cut out soy and dairy from my diet. I drank Almond milk which was very tasty. For butter, I used Earth Balance Soy Free Margarine. I basically had to cut out all processed foods because there seem to be some soy in most of it.

D&D4Ever7

Hi Sandy, I also decreased dairy intake.  My pedi told me not to completely eliminate it since I am vegetarian.  I haven't noticed any change in DS's gas/fussiness yet.  It has only been 4 days or so since I did this.  Eliminating dairy might work best, but if you do eliminate dairy from your diet, definitely look into taking calcium supplements.  My friend had issues with her teeth when she stopped drinking milk.  GL, I hope this works for you.

itsmegin

I already don't eat wheat or soy and rarely eat corn, rice or other grains, so eliminating dairy has been tough, I'm left with little I can eat. It's been a little over 2 weeks, at first i thought it was working but I think that was just a few "good" days. So far the only symptom that's totally gone away was the bright red diaper rash she had only on her butt. I'm going to give it another week or so, then try eating dairy again and judge her reaction. No use depriving myself if it's not even working. Her pedi did not think she had an allergy, her only symptoms were that diaper rash and her fussiness and apparent intestnal distress. I thought she had eczema but it was just heat rash from me overdressing her-it's still in the 80s here but I keep thinking it should be cold this time of year. I'd try it if I were you, but you have to give it several weeks to be sure.

olivia_eve

I'm dairy free now because of DS's gas and it has helped.  Dairy and soy is rough- soy is in so much, I was shocked when I started reading labels.  I like godairyfree.Org for dairy stuff.  For a treat, I just discovered Luna and Larry coconut milk ice cream, it's dairy and soy free.  Being able to have something sweet has really helped!

KCKSarah

I am vegetarian with occasional vegan tendencies (not of late because of pregnancy/breastfeeding, though) I don't like soy milk and recommend almond or hemp (very creamy) as a good replacement.  I also have some good cheezish recipes.  DM if interested.

Karen1998

Tell your husband this - my mom is allergic to bell peppers, onions and garlic, amongst other things.  Try cooking for me, who was off of milk entirely, and her at the same time.  Good freaking luck!  Now that's difficult cooking!

I cut out dairy when DS was about 3w as it seemed to intensify his colic and reflux.  I periodically tried it back, but hadn't tried it back for well over a month until this weekend.  It finally worked.  We figured out that he likely doesn't have a dairy allergy, but rather that dairy simply aggravated his colic.  Now I just feel like a truant child sneaking back into school every time I eat something with dairy in it!  I hope for you that you're lucky like I apparently am on this and that you'll be able to add it back in sooner rather than later.  I only had to give up dairy and I must say, as hard as that was, eliminating it and soy is so much harder.  My hat's off to you for doing this as it's truly hard to do, especially if you want to eat any processed and/or prepared food.  One thing I noticed with his symptoms was that after I did the total elimination for a while (a month or so), I could add back trace amounts in, so long as I did it only every few days.  So, I could eat a couple of cookies made with butter, or have a bit of butter on a roll.  The older he got, the more often I could do this. 

All that being said, here's what I've found helpful.  Dairy means cow's milk, so milk from other animals is still free game.  If you like goat's milk, you can get cheese and yogurt (and even milk) to use in recipes.  There are also many other versions of what I call "fake" milk yogurts, including coconut milk.  The coconut milk yogurt has the wrong consistency and it actually tastes more like dessert than yogurt.  Buffalo milk mozzarella is also free game.  Guess what - that means you can use it to make pizza!  Sorry, I really missed pizza.

For butter substitutes, use vegan butter.  Best Life makes a decent substitute.  If you're making cookies with it, you'll need to add more flour as the batter is too thin otherwise.  I added about a 1/2 cup to a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Butter flavored Crisco also makes a great butter substitute for baking. Actually, Crisco works really well in oatmeal raisin cookies, which also help your milk supply.

I didn't try to drink any "fake" milks as my milk or try any "fake" cheeses (mostly soy cheeses).  DH asked me why I refused to try them that way and I told him that it was the equivalent to me of eating carob and calling it chocolate.  Just not worth the calories.  I did find that I really like hazelnut milk.  It's harder to find than the other types of "milk."  They also make a chocolate hazelnut milk that's quite good in coffee.  It's my favorite for coffee, with almond or coconut milk being the next favorite.  I actually drink all of my fake milks in coffee as creamers, even though I normally drink coffee without creamer.  I decided it was my one way to get a pumpkin spice latte, so that's what I've been drinking.  I don't do soy in large amounts, so I couldn't go with soy milk.  

Almond milk is also good and oat milk is decent.  Oat milk seems to be the "thinnest" on flavor.  I used it to make corn bread and it worked fine.  I also really like coconut milk, though it adds a sweeter flavor and a lot more fat.  

It's hard to sub for milk in recipes, but if YH will google around for it, he can find some okay substitutes.  There's also a magazine called "Living Without" that is all about cooking for limited diets.  They probably have a website with recipes, but I haven't looked.  The magazine is quite good, though it mostly focuses on eliminating gluten.  

As for eating processed things, I read the labels thoroughly.  It's hard to avoid both dairy and soy, but it is possible to get things without both.  It'll be quite hard for you to find bread that has neither unless you go to a bakery that makes true basic bread (flour, water, salt and yeast).  Just about all of the breads in the supermarket have either soy or milk in them.  

GL girl!  Just remember that it's a limited amount of time that you have to do this!

ETA:  Ditto the other girls on taking calcium.  Also take a good probiotic as you won't be getting the bacteria from yogurt anymore!  Speaking of probiotics, has your doctor mentioned those for your child?  DS takes them and they seemed to possibly help his colic.  I took the shotgun approach to colic - try everything suggested as something was bound to hit.  The probiotics did seem to help him some.  I cleared them with his pedi first.

Clerk9

((HUGS))  The first few months can be SO stressful.

I don't have too much diet advice, but just wanted to share an observation.  I feel like EVERYONE who was BFing was worried about dairy/soy sensitivity issues around the age your LO is now.  I was, too.  I never got a pedi diagnosis of reflux, but DD had a lot of the signs (very frequent hiccups, fussing after eating, etc.).  I'm a vegetarian, so I was really reluctant to eliminate these key items from my diet.  

DD got over it.  By the time she was 2.5-3m old, she was like a different baby.  And I feel like a lot of the moms who were having refluxy-type issues with their LOs noticed a positive change around this time, as well.  I read somewhere that it can take awhile for babies' digestive tracts to mature, so my personal theory is that a lot of them go through this stage no matter what we try to do to help.  It totally sucks while you're in it.  But here at 4m, there are very few mamas I've interacted with who are still talking about digestive problems.  (Ladies, please correct me if I'm remembering wrong here!)     

Definitely listen to your pedi & do what you feel like you need to do.  But I just thought I'd offer up this perspective so you'll maybe give yourself a little bit of a break.  

GL & I hope G feels better ASAP!!!