Starting WCM

[picksthemusic]

B will be 1 on Sunday, and I started trying to incorporate WCM last week. It gave him terrible, painful gas. Poor baby was farty and grumpy and fussy. I was mixing it with his formula to get him used to the taste, but the taste doesn't seem to be the problem.

Does this mean he has lactose intolerance? Should I just introduce it slower, or what? I mean, I know WCM isn't the end-all-be-all, and he does well with cheese and yogurt so he'll still get his calcium/vit d/protein.

Paging jennlin and spunbutterfly for advice.

[toratoratori]

A few girls in the A14 Facebook group have been doing goat's milk for their babies who have milk sensitivities. It's worth a try.

[theoriginalbean]

I'd probably do a mix of milk and formula for a while and see how that goes. FWIW, neither of my kids drink much cow's milk. Both our pedi in Cincy and our new one here agree that there are plenty of other ways to get the nutrients and protein, so if it doesn't go well, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[picksthemusic]

Aug 20, 2015 11:28:09 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

Milk proteins are harder to digest than yogurt or cheese. If he's been on a normal formula until now (normal meaning not the specialty hypo-allergenic stuff), he's probably ok overall, but it's a lot to handle at once.

Lactose intolerance and what jenn's kids and my kid had have subtle differences.

If you think it's the milk, I'd try out something like almond milk instead for a while. My kid LOVES cow's milk... will guzzle it now, but then have wicked diarrhea for a few hours and then ask for milk again. ;p He's crazy.

Thanks! Yeah, he's on Kirkland Signature regular formula or plain old Similac, and does fine. When I gave him the WCM (even mixed 80/20 with mostly formula), he was still super gassy. Hopefully he'll get more used to it, but if not, we'll do something else.

[mrslefty]

We do soy milk and some goat's milk (because that shit ain't cheap yo!)

H gets suuuuuper constipated with dairy so we try to keep it to a minimum. If he gets a little dairy I can feed him a few prunes, but a whole cup of milk? We have to use miralax...

[jennlin]

sorry i'm late, but basically what spun said. regular formula is milk based, so it really shouldn't be lactose intolerance (but you never know, babies are weird). i would start by switching to almond, rice, or coconut milk. i have a personal vendetta with soy milk, so i avoid it. if he seems happy with that, try adding in lactose free milk..and if he's still okay, add wcm.

one note, though, almond and rice milk and even coconut milk are not as fatty as WCM. when bjl was on mostly almond milk while i was pregnant, she wasn't getting enough fat, and pedi suggested adding olive oil to her milk and foods...coconut milk is fattier than the two, but still a less than WCM.

[picksthemusic]

Aug 21, 2015 15:17:23 GMT -5 @lauralynne said:

as an alternative - we don't do milk at all. L gets cheese and yogurt and ice cream and some random other dairy sources but really no milk (sometimes I cook with it...). Oh, the occasional treat of chocolate milk. But he started off being very sensitive to cow's milk (bloody diaper rash) so we went to almond milk and then just quit all together (he stopped bottles at 13 months and drinks water or fruit/veggie smoothies from a cup with meals). I just don't buy it almost at all (DH sometimes craves cereal and then we have a small container of it in the house for a short time and DS will eat small bowls of cereal that are wet with milk but not really drink the milk).
It's not a required food group

Oh, I know. B loves his cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, and the teeny amounts of ice cream he's had, he loves. He's just being super picky right now (he's teething again - canines and his 1 year molars - whee!), and I am trying to make sure he gets some kind of nutrition, haha. But we have formula left and he loves water, so I'm not too concerned.

We won't ever be without milk, though, since I love it, J loves it, and M loves it.