Breastfeeding a Baby with a Dairy & Soy Intolerance

The Symptoms

My biggest struggle with breastfeeding this round was Reese’s dairy & soy intolerance. Reese was overall a much easier baby than Wyatt was, she was much more independent from the beginning in regards to sleep and separation, but she cried A LOT, and getting her to sleep and keeping her asleep was a huge challenge. We started noticing her body never really seemed settled or relaxed and she was incredibly fussy, we thought maybe we had a colicky baby. Then at around 7 weeks I started to notice blood in her stool, which had also been pretty mucousy for a while. At that point I started documenting- I had a “Reese’s Diapers” album on my phone to show our pediatrician at her 8 week appointment, which turned out to be very helpful. Our doctor was able to tell a lot, like where the blood was coming from for example, just by the pictures which helped him come to the conclusion, along with all of the other anecdotal evidence mentioned above, that she probably had an intolerance.

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What is MSPI?

Intolerance is different from an allergy, and a dairy & soy intolerance is also different from lactose intolerance. Most babies who have a dairy &/or soy intolerance usually grow out of it by age 1, their digestion just needs to develop some more so their bodies can digest the proteins found in cow’s milk and soy. MSPI (Milk and Soy Protein Intolerance) is the official name, here is some more info on it.

The Formula Test

After Reese’s 8 week appointment, my doctor advised that I cut all dairy and soy right away (because I wanted to continue breastfeeding) and run a little formula experiment over the next few days to test the intolerance theory. A high enough percentage of babies that have a dairy intolerance also have a soy intolerance so to fix Reese up as soon as possible we all decided it was best for me to cut both things at once. Her pediatrician gave us Alimentum, which is formula for allergies and sensitivities. He told us to exclusively give her the formula for the next 24-72 hours to see if it makes a difference, while I pumped to keep up my supply.

In less than 24 hours Reese was a different baby. It was insane how much of a change it was, she was SO much less fussy, her body was relaxed & she didn’t seem so uncomfortable and squirmy. After a few days, and we were more than convinced that this was the issue, I stocked up on Alimentum for the next few weeks because it takes at least 2-4 weeks for the dairy & soy to get out of the mom’s supply.

Exclusively pumping and not being able to give my baby that milk was not an easy task, especially with a baby who took forever to drink a bottle. After the first week, I stop saving my milk and just pumped & dumped so I didn’t have to go through the extra steps and effort to keep everything clean and stored. That was milk & soy tainted, and there was a decent chance that Reese wouldn’t have grown out of the intolerance before I could feed her the frozen dairy-soy milk, so I pumped & dumped to keep my sanity. I also started reintroducing middle-of-the-night nursing after week 2 because she had always seemed to do better at night with her symptoms regardless, and again I was trying to keep my sanity.

After about 3 weeks of formula, I started going back to exclusively nursing- slowly just in case there was still some dairy & soy in my supply. And at about 4 weeks after I cut dairy & soy from my diet, we were back to all nursing and saving any pumped milk, and Reese was a changed baby.

What I Ate

As a breastfeeding mother, I had to treat it as though I was allergic to dairy & soy…so that no traces would get into my breastmilk and give my baby symptoms. Which meant I couldn’t have anything that had any amount of dairy or soy in any of the ingredients…and soy seems to be in EVERYTHING. As annoying as cutting out dairy & soy was, it was 100000% better than a constantly fussy baby, I always say it was the easiest diet to stick to because my consequence was a screaming baby!

Going dairy & soy FREE means you really need to read ALL labels of anything you put into your body. While dairy is in so many things, it’s easier to know what it might be in, while soy sneaks into A LOT of things including things you wouldn’t even realize like chewing gum & prenatal vitamins. I was just super diligent about reading labels and with that I found a lot of things I could eat and brands that catered to allergies. My pediatrician told me it was fine if something was made in a facility that makes things with soy and dairy- sometimes labels will say that. Some of my favorite brands that have dairy & soy free products are:

• Enjoy Life
• Simple Mills
• So Delicious
• Kite Hill
• Daiya
  
  Note: not every item of these brand is dairy AND soy free, still read the packaging!

I found that most of my everyday eating wasn’t greatly affected, I could still have eggs, meat, rice, pasta, fruits, vegetables, etc but I just had to watch what they were marinated in or what was put on them (oil, marinade, butter, etc.) So cooking at home was easy where I had dairy and soy free butter, oil, marinades & “soy” sauce, but eating at anyone else’s home or out was definitely more of a challenge.

Some of my go-to soy & dairy free foods, replacements, or snack foods are below. I never special ordered anything, I could find most things at my local Wegman’s, Stop & Shop or Target.

• Larabars
• Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips These were my holy grail dairy/soy free item and probably the sole reason it took me so long to lose the baby weight. I now prefer them to Tollhouse, hard to believe but 100% true. The semi-sweet mega chips are my favorite, followed by the minis, then the dark. These are always at Target, great for curbside pickup in a pinch!
• Lenny and Larry’s Cookies
• Amy’s Roasted Vegetable No Cheese Pizza My holy grail pizza, I was never really a big fan of cheese substitutes especially on pizza, so cheese-less it was for me! This one is so delish!
• So Delicious ice cream. Check the ingredients, not all of them are soy-free, but they have really good pints made with nut milks. So Delicious and Daiya also have good ice cream bar & sandwich options. Jeni’s also makes delicious soy & dairy-free options too!
• Coconut oil or just olive instead of vegetable or canola oil, it often contains soy. This includes spray oils like Pam- that has soy!
• Sweet Loren’s Actually delicious break & bake cookies and edible dough. You can also make regular chocolate chip cookies by replacing the butter & chocolate chips if you want homemade!
• Daiya Ranch Not the real thing, but works, especially as a dip for carrots or those dairy-free pizza crusts! Primal Kitchen also makes good dressings & sauces.
• Coconut Aminos a soy sauce substitute. Definitely a different taste than soy sauce, but very tasty! Also know that a lot of sushi places will use soy sauce IN their sushi, so even if you’re not dipping it, that’s not always a safe option.
• Earth Balance Soy-Free Butter
• Some things you can generally usually eat, just double check the ingredients if possible: Tortilla chips (and salsa & guac…it’s not so bad right?!), potato chips (plain or check ingredients), fresh bread (prepackaged on store shelves often will have soy, but there are kinds that don’t), bagels, gummy candy like Sour Patch Kids

Reintroducing Dairy & Soy

At around 7 months I started reintroducing soy & dairy. I was given the green light to try at 6 months, but we were doing some traveling and I didn’t want to risk it. My method for reintroducing soy and dairy was to have a little bit of the allergen myself, and see if Reese was affected over the next few hours or day, and if not continue to have more. Then, with no symptoms after a few days, add another more potent form of the allergen.

I started with soy and ate some things that had soy in them and then by day two just tried actual soy sauce on rice and Reese wasn’t affected at all. From there I slowly took a dip into dairy. There’s a “Milk Ladder” you can follow to reintroduce dairy, but just think of it like introducing the lowest, most reduced form of dairy first and building from there. I also ate small amounts in things, not just like a huge portion. I started with cooked butter, then cooked cheese and milk cooked into things, then raw cheese, yogurt and then milk. To be honest, I started REALLY slowly and tried to keep my dairy consumption low, then after about two weeks wasn’t very methodical about what I was introducing because I wasn’t seeing a change in Reese, she seemed pretty clearly over the intolerance. She did spit up a little when I first reintroduced dairy into my diet and then hers (she wasn’t spitting up at all previous to the reintroduction), but that only lasted about a week or two. Her stool was still normal, and she wasn’t suddenly fussy again. The whole process took me about a month until I was just straight up feeding Reese yogurt and I was back to eating all the real pizza and ice cream.

It now seems like a lifetime ago that Reese ad I had to go dairy & soy free. I definitely noticed feeling less bloated and overall a little better when I was dairy free, and I do find myself reaching for less dairy, but I never want to go on a break with Ben & Jerry again.

To that note, if we do have another baby, I probably will preemptively go dairy and soy free before I give birth, and part of me now wonders if Wyatt came out with a sensitive stomach as well and we never figured it out.

These photos are from Reese’s first birthday photoshoot, going all in on full dairy ice cream, no sweeter sight than that!

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