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Home › Articles › Toddler Nutrition › Dairy Diaries

Dairy Diaries

Recognizing Your Toddler's Milk Allergy

By Laura Cone

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With ads from the Dairy Council eulogizing milk, some moms feel they are being downright neglectful if they don't give their toddler dairy products.

"It's ingrained in us," says Dr. Lauren Feder, a Los Angeles physician who specializes in homeopathic medicine. "Many people around the world are lactose intolerant. We are the only animals [that], once weaned, ... drink another animal's milk. It sounds rather odd, but we have all grown up with that."

Dr. Feder, author of Natural Baby and Childcare (Hatherleigh Press, 2006), says parents should absolutely not give their children milk before they are 1 year old. She personally believes in giving her two children milk to drink in moderation.

Dr. Feder points out that 90 percent of food allergies are caused by dairy, egg whites, peanuts and tree nuts, shellfish and fish, soybeans and soybean products such as tofu and wheat.

Toddler Food Journal
Dr. Feder recommends parents keep a "dairy diary," recording not only what their toddler eats and when, but their bowel movements and other organ system responses. "It certainly helps to look at the whole picture, not just bowel movement, but skin reactions such as rashes," she says. "It could be the respiratory system with watery eyes, darkness under the eyes." She says parents should note if their toddler has diarrhea, rash and redness, gas, cramping, straining, constipation, mucous or blood in their stool.

June Cook, a mother from Carrollwood, Fla., says her son Adam, 7, is allergic to milk, but her son Eric, 4, can enjoy dairy without adverse side effects. She noticed problems when her older son started having frequent ear infections at the age of 2. "My pediatrician suspected milk allergy," Cook says. "We cut out the cow's milk and we had to be careful about what he ate." Cook, who breastfed for more than a year, went to an allergist and, through a skin test, found her son did indeed have a milk allergy.


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