Dairy- i cant bring myself to give her any

[Yael]

My views have changed after all the health problems i went through with DD

She was fine up until 6 months, exclusively b/f etc, but still putting on constant weight. From 6 montyhs i introduced solids, but witheld dairy & wheat as i had read that it could reduce allergies with a family history etc.

From 6 months on DD had severe weight issues, putting on 400g in 4 months and began to look terrible.

The evidence shows that witholding any food groups doesn't not influence whether a child will be allergic, so other than whole nuts (due to choking hazard), no food group should be delayed, and if there is a family history to watch out for the signs, but not to not give. Infact, withholding may cause more allergies. This is the current advice of the Melbourne RCH immunology department.

My personal belief is that one should not withhold any major food group without the advice and monitoring of a paediatric dietician. Children need a certain intake of fats & oils, and cheese and non sweet yoghurt are a great source of this. Infact, the first fattening up thing we were told to give was tolds of cheese & butter. I was still b/feeding DD from 6 months on, but i don't think she consumed enough b milk to make up for the amount she would have needed if she was having these food groups. It's easy to think oh i'm bfeeding so i don't need to give a,b,c or d, but you do have to give above and beyond what they would be getting if you were giving it to make up.

I certainly regret my decisions, and wish that i had a dieitican to monitor DD< as perhaps she wouldn't have ended up so unwell.

She was small to begin with, so that didn't help her, but in larger sized kids it might be easy to miss that they really do require these things.

Once again, i urge all parents not to read things on the internet, or to go by their guts feelings all the time (and i'm not saying not to trust your gut feelings, because they are often right), but somebody external with the right training monitoring your child can only help the situation to make sure that your child is having adequate nutrition.

[Shanti]

I felt a bit funny about giving DD dairy at first too....because she's BF but also because I was worried about allergies etc! (I think we are scared too much with allergies!)

But since 7mths, DD has been given Jalna yoghurt and also has cheese and LOVES her cheese and yoghurt!

Since 9mths we've put full cream cows milk on her weetbix but not every day, only probably every 3-4 days..... otherwise she has Rafferty's cereal with water and fruit mixed in....

I admit I am too lazy to express milk for her cereal but only because I did sooo much damn expressing for her in those first 5mths with ALL the problems we encountered with BF'ing and getting milk supply established etc, I just don't have the energy to go near my pump anymore!!! And I think that's fair enough too LOL
She's getting the goodness of BM and thats the main thing. A little bit of dairy won't hurt her but thats JMO. Each to their own I say.