My nearly-4-year-old son has never wanted to drink milk, so we didn't offer. He's eaten lots of cheese, yogurt here and there, and butter since 1-1.5 years old. He's also been very hot-headed, and has seemed to have a hard time controlling his emotions that whole time.
About 5 months ago we started grasping at straws to try to figure out his behavior. We eliminated dairy for about a week (which I now realize wasn't long enough) and saw little to no improvement, so went back. Once winter set in, though, we started sharing homemade hot cocoa occasionally, and then it became CRYSTAL clear that dairy is, in fact, a problem for him.
In January we eliminated all dairy for 3 weeks (the whole family), then gave him a cup of steamed vanilla milk (it had become clear that he also went bonkers with just cocoa powder, so we wanted to eliminate that from the equation). We paid for this trial for 3 days. He was just completely out of control, could not regulate his emotions, and was miserable and miserable to be around. On day 4, he was the sweetest boy. Yikes! At one point he sat on a heat duct for about 2 hours sobbing, yelling, "I can't stop crying and I don't know why!!"
We then started to trial butter and cheese, and thought that each were going well until a few days into the trials, he turned sour again. We've made the decision to completely cut dairy out of our diets for the time being. DH is certainly welcome to eat whatever he wants when away from us, but it just seems so much simpler to keep a dairy-free house. I also don't know yet whether or not DD is sensitive to dairy, so it seems reasonable to keep me and her completely off of it for now.
ANYWAY, here's my real question:
With a behavioral issue like this, what exactly is going on in his little body when he eats dairy? He says that he feels fine, physically. Nothing hurts. Why does it make him crazy? There are times that he's had milk that he will literally start running in circles, flapping all of his appendages, and yelling. He CAN'T stop. Other times he's just plain mean, or just falls apart at the drop of a pin.
As an aside, I am so sad thinking about the past 2.5 years of hardship. He is such a sweetheart when he's not eating dairy, and I feel like it is time wasted. Trying to look ahead, not back, is so hard!
Now I just have to figure out what is making my DD's bottom raw and bloody. I was hoping the dairy would fix it, but no.
I don't really know where to go from here, and don't feel emotionally ready for a TED just yet.
About 5 months ago we started grasping at straws to try to figure out his behavior. We eliminated dairy for about a week (which I now realize wasn't long enough) and saw little to no improvement, so went back. Once winter set in, though, we started sharing homemade hot cocoa occasionally, and then it became CRYSTAL clear that dairy is, in fact, a problem for him.
In January we eliminated all dairy for 3 weeks (the whole family), then gave him a cup of steamed vanilla milk (it had become clear that he also went bonkers with just cocoa powder, so we wanted to eliminate that from the equation). We paid for this trial for 3 days. He was just completely out of control, could not regulate his emotions, and was miserable and miserable to be around. On day 4, he was the sweetest boy. Yikes! At one point he sat on a heat duct for about 2 hours sobbing, yelling, "I can't stop crying and I don't know why!!"
We then started to trial butter and cheese, and thought that each were going well until a few days into the trials, he turned sour again. We've made the decision to completely cut dairy out of our diets for the time being. DH is certainly welcome to eat whatever he wants when away from us, but it just seems so much simpler to keep a dairy-free house. I also don't know yet whether or not DD is sensitive to dairy, so it seems reasonable to keep me and her completely off of it for now.
ANYWAY, here's my real question:
With a behavioral issue like this, what exactly is going on in his little body when he eats dairy? He says that he feels fine, physically. Nothing hurts. Why does it make him crazy? There are times that he's had milk that he will literally start running in circles, flapping all of his appendages, and yelling. He CAN'T stop. Other times he's just plain mean, or just falls apart at the drop of a pin.
As an aside, I am so sad thinking about the past 2.5 years of hardship. He is such a sweetheart when he's not eating dairy, and I feel like it is time wasted. Trying to look ahead, not back, is so hard!
Now I just have to figure out what is making my DD's bottom raw and bloody. I was hoping the dairy would fix it, but no.