Probably sensitivity to nuts - how long to wait to introduce another food?

[karin95]

Our 3 month old son has eczema and, as I've previously posted, we're b'feeding and are doing an elimination diet to try and determine what, if any, sensitivities he has.
We were hoping for the answer to be "none".

We took him to a homeopath and have been getting great results from the remedy he gave us!

However, we introduced nuts back into our diet on Saturday night. We saw no reactions until Tuesday/Wednesday. His eczema is worse on his neck and other spots. And yesterday and today he's been gassier than ever. Is that normal that it would take a few days to have a reaction??

It's so hard to say "yes, it's from the nuts", because eczema and gas aren't constants. They fluctuate anyway. But the gas, especially, wasn't normal. So we're going to stay off nuts for a few more months and try again later.

My main question is: We're still off dairy, wheat, peanuts & soy...how long should we wait to reintroduce one of these? We had been waiting 4-5 days (we already introduced corn with no problems), but I assume we'd want to clear the nuts out of the equation before we try something else? HOw long?
Thanks!

[wendy1221]

Peanuts, nuts, and shellfish should be avoided until he's 4 *years* old since you know he's prone to allergies. You should keep them out of your diet until he is weaned or he is 4, whichever comes first. You should wait 7-14 days between trialing foods back into your diet. If there is a reaction, like eczema, you should wait until it's cleared before trying something else. And yes, it's normal to have a delayed reaction, which is why you should wait 7-14 days between trials to make sure there really isn't a reaction. And even if he doesn't react to the more common allergens, like dairy, egg, soy, wheat, fish, and probably sesame, in YOUR diet, you should not feed them to him directly until he's at least over a year old. A lot of people avoid the top 8 for the first year of nursing just in case.

This is what my allergist recommended (avoiding trhe foods he reacted to for a full year before trying them again and avoiding nuts, etc, until he's 4) and I've heard the same thing from most of the moms at kidswithfoodallergies.org For me, it wasn't a choice, since Liam was allergic to the entire top 8 except fish. I'm not sure if would have avoided them all for the first year even if he hadn't been allergic to them all. THe nuts and shellfish definitely, but maybe not wheat. Going gluten-free was the hardest for me, mainly b/c we can't have eggs, so I have to make EVERYTHING from scratch pretty much. But I'm fine w/ it now, and planning on staying gluten free for a good long time.

Good luck!