Questions Regarding Reintroducing Milk

i love rice dream "milk" (vanilla flavor), easy to find in reg. grocery stores, about $3 for 1/2 gal. lactose, gluten free, low fat, no chol. same vit. & min. + some, as milk. didn't like at 1st try, now i drink it straight out of the glass, cereal, mix in shakes, even my 5 y.o likes it... and honestly you probably don't need specifically milk to drink, you may just want to use yogurt, cottage cheese and things like that, to get the daily value in.

One of my twins did not tolerate dairy well at all so we had him off dairy and were giving him soy products as well as lactose free milk which he tolerated. A friend who had similar probelms with her son said his GI doctor had them introduce dairy in small stages. Mixing a spoonful of regular yogurt with his soy yogurt or a small amount of regular milk in with his soy or lactose free milk. This is how I eventually got my son to tolerate dairy. When I first tried it didn't work so we just waited and tried again. You just gradually increase the amount of regular dairy in his diet. Good Luck!

Dear S.,

Soy isn't all it is cracked up to be. First of all it is heavily processed and contains a lot of aluminum (bad for brain function) and very high estrogen (which is like putting your boy baby on birth control pills.) Look here - http://search.mercola.com/Results.aspx?q=soy&k=soy

Dairy is hard for the body to digest and contributes to mucus formation which blocks ears. Try goat's milk. Much better for babies.

God Bless,

S.

kefir is lactose free-- it is a cultured milk drink that tastes kind of like a yogurt smoothie. the kefir cultures break down the lactose.

cheese and yogurt are much easier to digest because they are cultured-- the culture breaks the milk down, but i'm not sure specifically whether it breaks down lactose or casein... but you might start with some organic yogurt and see how that goes. people with milk allergies (like me) do much better with cultured milk products.

goat milk is even gentler on the tummy because it is most similar to breastmilk. you can usually find goat milk at a health food store, or you can find a farm that offers goat shares.

i'm really sensitive to regular milk so we participate in a milk share program-- we buy a share of a dairy farm, and we get fresh raw milk. it's much easier for the body to digest because it has good bacteria that help digest the lactose. if you want to read more about it and find a source near you look at www.realmilk.com We drink both raw cow and goat milk. it is grass fed, organic, hormone free, clean and very tasty. the cream rises to the top... mmmm!

It is a medical myth that people "outgrow" allergies--especially to a food that is inherantly difficult to digest like cows milk. The symptoms just change--like runny nose, congestion, cough, skin problems, behavior problems. My oldest and youngest girls did not want to beleive this and have eaten dairy for years(since they were old enough to buy their own!) after many problems as babies. Now they have both quit dairy as adults and are amazed at howmuch better they feel, my youngest(20 yrs)has had no sesonal allergies this spring(which is one of the main problems I have with milk) There are so many good foods to eat --cows milk is the perfect food--only for baby cows!

Not sure about the lactose, but I've seen a soy-based cheese in the Nature Food section at Giant Eagle that had only casein as a milk ingredient. I don't remember the brand name, but if you check the ingredients on the cheeses in the Nature Food area, you'll probably find it. They also have a bunch of soy-based yogurts by O'soy - they have a milk ingredient in them, I don't remember if it was casein or whey (both milk-proteins), but you could check the label (might have even been lactose). My children are allergic to milk proteins, so I've had to get very familiar with reading ingredient labels. If he's still sensitive, I would think he would react to these products, even though they aren't true "dairy" products and only have small amounts of dairy in them. It's probably best to start small anyway - I know with my older daughter, when we were able to start introducing dairy into her daughter, the allergist recommended starting just with things that contained small amounts of milk before trying actual dairy products.

FYI- I noticed a few people recommended goat's milk to you. If he is actually allergic to milk protein (which casein is a milk protein), then he shouldn't have goat's milk either. It's on the list of products that my pediatrician gave us to avoid due to our daughter's milk protein allergy, so it must also contain one of the milk proteins (don't know if it's casien).

I didn't know about this either. My first thought is try Whole Foods and Trader Joes. Goat's milk is a good idea if the cow milk doesn't work out for you. It's the closest thing to mama's milk you can get.

I would be very careful re-introducing these foods into his diet unless I was certain he was not allergic. My son had an unknown allergy to soy and ended up in the hospital at 10 months old with a severe asthma attack as a result of soy in his diet. Although his allergy to soy was slight (just a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5) the repeated drinking of soy milk built up in his system. I would wait for a couple months and watch for rashes, wheezing, runny nose, coughing, hives etc. before trying to introduce any milk products to his diet.

Are you sure he is just sensitive to soy and milk and not allergic? You may want to see a pediatric allergist before introducing milk into his diet. Typically kids allergic to milk are also allergic to soy. Your son has these to sensitivities (or allergies?)

There is no dairy with just lactose in it. Usually young children who are allergic to milk are allergic to the protien in milk (casien, casienate, and whey). They are not allergic to lactose which is the sugar in milk.

Good luck

Hi S.,

I kept my dd on goat's milk bc everytime I reintroduced milk or yougurt, anything from cow or soy, she'd get sick.
Goat milk though, doesn't have all the vitamins so I had to put her on viatmins as well with iron.
She is 22 months and I don't really want to reintroduce dairy. I have read some freightening informaiton about dairy and soy.

Many kids outgrow the allergies or sensitivity but until she's a bit older I'm not taking chances, my son who is almost 11 months, has the same problem...

I don't actually have a suggestion for what products have it or not. My only helpful piece of advise is not to over do it with the soy. The only reason I say this is because soy can increase your estrogen levels and actually cause your prolactin to drop (prolactin is what deals with milk production and yadda yadda, but I'm sure you already knew that). That's what happened to me because I tried not to have any soy at the beginning when my son was born because I knew some of the effects, so after about 4-5 months I decided to give it a try and it caused my milk production to come to a hault. Just some advise. And I only drank a glass or two of soy milk a day and it still happened:(
good luck to you!!!