I am literally in tears and at wits end.Please help if you can! My oldest son, who is 3 now, had a dairy allergy when I was nursing him. I had to cut out all dairy (including ingredients and what not). He grew out of it by the time he was nine months....I thought that it was "hard."
I nursed him until he was 13 months.
Well now I have my little 6 month old...so when he started having symptoms of
allergy at about a month old I knew exactly what to look for. So we took him in,
got it confirmed that there was blood in his stool (even though I couldn't see it)...
so I cut out dairy again. Nothing got better. I had no idea what to do, and all the
sites on infant food allergies say to cut out dairy, soy, wheat, corn, eggs and
peanuts. Well that pretty much left me with chicken and vegetables for a diet.
About a month ago I introduced wheat back in, and he started reacting again. He wasn't fussy during the day at all, but he was pooing a lot more. Like two times a
day instead of once every few days. But his sleeping (which has never been good
EVER... a "good night" is only waking up 2 or 3 times) got much worse. We couldn't get more than 45 mins of sleep at a time. I took him in to the doctor again to
check, and sure enough there was blood again.
So I cried. I really enjoyed my sandwiches that I ate that week. But then I was doing research and found that sometimes the vaccines have soy in them, and he had just got a round of vaccines a week or so before they tested his diaper. So now I'm wondering, could it have been the soy from the vaccine that caused the blood in the stool?
I don't know what the heck he is allergic to. Yes I could "test it out" by introducing things....but say I introduce wheat...and then he reacts....and then i have to wait a month...then soy...then wait a month....it seems like there are so many foods to test and in the meantime months are passing and my kid is getting big and I am BARELY keeping up enough milk for him now. My body is really struggling because I can't hardly eat a thing and so it's really hard for me to make milk and in return that is making for some really crappy nursing sessions (he doesn't "comfort nurse"...if there is no milk coming out right away he gets very upset and pulls off over and over until I FINALLY have a let down)...and my nipples are soreand he seems hungry all the time. And he wakes up all the time crying from hunger.
I am feeling so depressed lately because I am HUNGRY...and TIRED....and I can't eat anything. I just want a taco. I am seriously considering going to the expensive sensitive formula. I am the biggest breastfeeding advocate EVER....so I cringe when I say it....but what else am I supposed to do? He's hungry, I'm hungry, neither of us are sleeping. And since my diet is SO limited, is he even getting the vitamins his little body needs from my milk? I have no idea. I heard of getting allergy tests done to see for sure what all he is allergic to...is that a good idea? Please help!
OR..should I just eat the wheat anyways even if he is allergic to it? He didn't sleep well but for the first time in months I had enough milk to make both of us happy. Ugh.