Well, first try at yogurt was a DISASTER - what to feed a no-dairy toddler?

[marinkitty]

Now that DD is almost a year I decided we would try introducing some dairy (she was switched to Nutramigen at about 5 months after numerous GI doc. visits and dairy elimination diets b/c of a milk protein intolerance). So, she happily scarfed down about half a container of vanilla yobaby and seemed fine the rest of the day. The next day disaster struck. She has had horrible mucousy or liquid poops and has been vomiting on and off since then (2 full days now). She also has a fever and was lethargic for a day or so which the ped. said isn't the yogurt - probably a virus, but I'm worried the rest of it was the dairy (or made worse by the dairy). Just too much of a coincidence.

In case I'm right and she ends up not being able to have any dairy . . .Do any of you have no-dairy kids over one? If so, what in the world do you feed them to make sure they get enough nutrients and fat in their diets? I had initially assumed you to soy products but having read some posts recently it sounds like people are skeptical that provides enough fat and may have other side effects (and I don't even know if she'll tolerate soy). Do they even make soy butter, soy yogurt etc. or will we just have to avoid these things?

I just envision a very boring culinary future for her (and lots of difficulties since almost everything store bought seems to have dairy in it).

TIA for any insights!


Holly
Mom to Mia (3.17.03)

[lizajane]

can't speak from experience. schuyler is 11 mo and is fine with yogurt and cheese. but since i intend to give him only soymilk and no dairy milk, i have checked out the soy section at the store. i know they make soy cheese and ice cream. don't know about butter or yogurt, though. but if you can find low sugar ice cream, why not!!

avacado has fat it in and makes a nice spread, like butter. olive oil has "good fat," too. it would be good for pasta and cooking veggies (to add fat to veg.) hummus has good fat. (chick peas- is that right?)
hmmm... tofu has fat.

personally, i have just made a decision that cow's milk is for baby cows and i don't want to give it to my baby person. now, that doesn't mean i think that there is ANYTHING wrong with everyone else in the world giving their kids dairy milk. i just don't want to give it to my kid, and we only drink soymilk in our house anyway. dh and i are both lactose intolerant. i will discuss with my ped, but i am pretty sure that we can manage to give him the right nutrition without dairy milk. i imagine that some of the concern about soymilk not having as much x, y and z as dairy milk is for folks who feed their kids "prepared" foods (like chicken nuggets, etc.) ALL the time and don't spend as much time as we BBB parents do on food for our kids.

let us know what you figure out!

[Rachels]

There are DEFINITELY soy and enriched rice products that work for dairy-allergic kids. You could have her tested after the age of 18 months by an allergist (before that, skin and blood-serum allergy testing is pretty unreliable). Another option is to have a naturopath test her now, which works and is noninvasive (uses muscle-strength testing to identify allergens). We went the naturopath route and found it ENORMOUSLY helpful in identifying and responding to my daughter's food allergies. FWIW, there are some great allergy cookbooks for kids. It's worth a search on Amazon. Meanwhile, you can keep up the fat and calories by cooking her food in lots of olive oil and enriching things with soy protein powder. A health food store will have more dairy-free options than a conventional grocery store. HTH!

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[mom2kandj]

Your local health food store(Whole Foods, Wild Oats, etc) is your best bet for dairy free products. If your DD has problems with dairy or soy, you can also try rice milk or almond milk if your ped oks it. FWIW, Stoneyfield Farms, the maker of Yo Baby yogurt, also makes a soy yogurt called O'Soy in the same 6 pack of 4oz containers as the Yo Baby. The O'Soy comes in a 6pk of chocolate(YUCK!) or a combo of 3 peach/3 strawberry. We've tried other soy yogurts, but they tend to be too tart for my kids. Yes, the O'Soy is high in sugar, but we can deal with that. As for the fat content of their diet, there are plenty of ways to add good fat(olive oil, avocados,etc). I would ask your ped for a referral to a pediatric allergist just to get the ball rolling. PLMK if you have any more questions! HTH!


Rose
mom 2 Katie 12/02/00 (eczema, asthmatic, & allergic to dairy, eggs, oranges, blue dye, cats, dogs, and horses)
& Jack 04/16/02 (dairy sensitive, but has not been tested due to lack of any other presenting symptoms/triggers)

[JElaineB]

So sorry Mia had a bad reaction to the yogurt. I don't have any advice, but here is a website run by a mom from another group I read. Her kid or kids have milk protein allergies as well and I'm sure she had lots of good info on the site.

http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html

Hope this helps.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[teddy]

My DD had the same symptoms 2 weeks ago as your DD and my ped diagnosed it as a rotavirus, basically a stomach and intestinal virus. DD had terrible, watery, green poops and threw up twice after drinking milk. Ped said to avoid dairy for 7-8 days because the stomach is unable to digest the lactose while invaded by the virus. After one day on soy milk, she was doing much better. I also had to avoid cheese and gave DD only a tiny bit of yogurt. She just drank a lot of Pedialyte and water during this time (no juice either). The stomach virus cleared up within a week, just as the ped said it would.

So, hopefully your DD isn't lactose intolerant and that she just has a stomach virus. But in case she IS lactose intolerant, I've seen a bunch of soy products in the natural foods section of my Dominicks grocery store (Safeway). I can't recall soy butter but there is a soy-type spread, soy yogurt, soy cheese, soy hot dogs, etc...

Good luck!

[hellokitty1]

holly-

when you had the GI issues, did you try soy b4 moving to nutrimagen?

[luvbeinmama]

There are SEVERAL soy yogurts on the market. You can get (locally anyway) WholeSoy yogurt at most of the regular grocery stores although the selection is limited. Rose is right, though. "Health food" or "Whole food" type markets have the best selection of soy products in respect to both flavor variety and type of product variety. Soy milk is regularly available at grocery stores now, too. In your cooking just substitute soy milk (or rice milk, whatever) for regular milk, it works just fine. I did/am keeping the kids on soy formula until 2, though instead of age 1 because the soymilk only has fat equal to lowfat milk, not whole fat which is what they recommend from age 1-2. Then at 2 I switch to the soymilk. There is soy cheese (although I don't really like it, but if your kid gets used to it they don't know any better). Amy's (in the organic frozen/packaged foods section) makes Macaroni N SoyCheez which my kids love. Also she makes a Soy Cheez pizza which I haven't tried yet, as my son also is sensitive to tomatoes. BTW, Quaker Oatmeal's fruit & cream instant oatmeal packages contain NO DAIRY!!! Avoiding dairy takes some getting used to, but is not really all that difficult once you do it for a while. You WILL want to bring food for your DD to any potluck occassions as everything seems to end up with cheese in it. And keep telling your DD what she can't eat, when she is older she will know and avoid it. Restaurants are fun, too, because some use only butter and have no margarine on site. Italian places tend to have butter or olive oil only. Okay, I'm rambling here. HTH!

[marinkitty]

No, we did not. Our GI doc. said 50% of kids with the dairy problem also have a soy problem and he didn't recommend it. So she has never had soy.

Holly
Mom to Mia (3.17.03)

[marinkitty]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback. Mia was so sick this week and actually ended up in the ER yesterday and had to have an IV b/c she was so dehydrated from nothing staying in her (it was just coming right out both ends)! It was awful. Today she only had Pedialyte and right before bed I did 1/2 Pedialyte, 1/2 Nutramigen and she kept it down so perhaps she is finally on the mend. She has lost over two pounds since Monday and she now weighs less than she did at her 9 month checkup over 2 months ago. They said it was gastroenteritis (sp?) and it is making the rounds. So perhaps the yogurt was a coincidence, or perhaps it was a lactose reaction b/c she was sick - or perhaps it just made the diarreha worse. In any event, we'll wait till her 1 year appt. to discuss how to next try out dairy with the dr. and if we do end up going the soy route I will have all your wisdom and I'll head to Whole Foods! Thanks.

Holly
Mom to Mia (3.17.03)