Does this sound like a food sensitivity to you?

[savvybabygrace]

My dd#2 is 8.5 months old and was ebf until 2.5 weeks ago, when I introduced sweet potatoes and then carrots. Her daddy gave her some banana and a suck on her big sister's apple (but those were just one time things, the sweet potatoes were every day, once a day, for a week and a half, the carrots about 3 times total).

Of course, her poop turned solid (and bright orange!). She developed a red bum from where the poop touched it, and within a week she'd developed open, bleeding, small sores where the poop touched her bottom. We immediately halted all solids and are back to ebf. I'm squirting her down with breastmilk and letting her air dry a ton, we're slathering her with cream so that her poop won't touch her bum, and we took her to a ped who told us she'd do a swab to test for something or other and never got back to us.

She also has eczema and serious sleep issues (never sleeps longer than 2 hours in a row....ever. In her life.)

Does this sound like a food sensitivity or allergy to you?? What should I do?

[kjbrown92]

It sounds like a food sensitivity to me. First of all through your breastmilk, causing the eczema and sleep issues. And then second with the solids. For me, I'd say eating 4 things in 2 weeks is too fast (and that is hindsight's recommendation since I ended up having to do an elimination diet when DD was 1, since I didn't go slow enough in the introduction phase). I'd say get her to a good starting point first (as in figure out what in your diet is causing her eczema and sleeplessness) THEN start solids slowly for her. Just my opinion of course, but I've got two kids with multiple intolerances.

[Chinese Pistache]

I agree with Kathy. Figure out what's triggering her eczema first (through your bm) and then, intro foods very slowly to her.

[savvybabygrace]

Thank for the ideas!

Would you have any suggestions about what types of foods could be causing the eczema and sleep issues? Everyone I've talked to thought I was crazy to think that the food I eat could be causing her to have such horrible sleep issues. I really have no experience in this area at all - should I start by eliminating dairy? Or....well...what else?

Thank you so much, mamas!

[kjbrown92]

It really could be any food.

Choice #1:
You can cut out nothing but keep a very detailed food diary and look for patterns (immediate - 96 hours through breastmilk) to see what food(s) is the culprit.

Choice #2:
Take out foods one at a time until everything is good. I'd look at milk and soy first (since it seems the most common) then the other 6 of the top 8.

Choice #3:
Elimination diet. Go down to the bare minimum, then add foods back in every 4-6 days to determine the culprit. (Dr. Sears has one that alot of people here follow. I used Dr. Rapp's minus some additional foods)

I ended up taking out milk, then milk and soy, then doing the elimination diet. It turned out my dd had many intolerances, with different symtpoms.

Kathy

[txtarheel]

My son has an anaphylactic dairy allergy. He's only had yogurt fed directly to him (and no other milk products) once in his life. The rest of his exposure was through my BM. I ate huge amounts of dairy until we found out. His only symptoms were really mild eczema, random bouts of fussiness/moodiness when he just didn't seem "right," allergy shiners (black circles under the eyes), and terrible terrible awful sleep habits.

I agree with the others. Dairy is the most likely culprit. But your daughter may not have an issue with it. There could also be multiple causes. My son has multiple allergies. When we cut out one, we'd see dramatic improvement, then he'd gradually regress over 2-3 weeks until we figured out another. Once we had good sleep for several weeks, we figured we were golden and he's been an easy kid ever since.