Our Allergy Journey

I've been thinking about writing this post for sometime now but I always worried about how it would make me look as a new mumma. I've decided to go ahead and share our story though because if it helps one new mumma struggling with baby allergies, it will be totally worth it.

As many of you know, Lilly was born 6 weeks early at 34 weeks due to severe pre-eclampsia. I am actually waiting for an appointment meet with my obstetrician to discuss whether I actually had HELLP but that's a whole other blog post.

Lilly was a teeny tiny 1.59kg or 3 pound 8 which meant she was just 90grams shy of being labelled a low birth weight bubba. This label brings with it a whole load of special considerations and a trip to the NICU rather than getting to stay in Special Care where she spent her first 4 and a half weeks of life.

Anway, we've spent Lilly's entire life battling between her real age and her corrected age. We never got any advice on whether to start Lilly on solids when she hit 6 months real age or to wait the extra 6 weeks until she hit 6 months corrected. I watched her closely to see whether she was showing signs of readiness (no tongue reflex, looking for food and trying to grab at it while I ate and sitting quite well with limited support). Once she was meeting most of them, we got started. 

 Looking back now, I wonder whether we should have waited another few weeks. Lilly's first food was some mango smoothie made on just yoghurt and mango. There were no reactions but she certainly didn't enjoy it. I left it a few days then tried some veggies and toast which she actually liked so we continued with baby led weaning. On one occassion, she had a taste of milk froth and a little red dot came up on her lip. I was really unsure so we decided just to watch her closely after her next taste of dairy.

Not long after, I decided to give Lilly some yoghurt to play with. She LOVED it and was covered head to toe. Within minutes, she developed a nasty rash which just got darker and darker. She started to develop welts all around her neck where the yoghurt had been touching her. I sat at the front door and rang Hubby in a panic who was luckily just a minute or two from home. I remember being really unsure whether or not I was overreacting or whether I needed to panic a bit more. Those two minutes felt like a lifetime!

When he walked through the door, he confirmed my fears and we rushed up to the doctors who is also just a few minutes down the road. We didn't even put clothes on her! They squeezed us in to see my GP straight away. The picture below was while we were sitting in the waiting room. It was very red wherever the yoghurt touched her, even up near her eye. I was so scared even though she was quite happy.

The GP came to the conclusion that it was just a skin reaction and to keep offering as much milk as we wanted. We were not happy with this diagnosis so booked in to see another GP (the one my Hubby usually sees). After filling him in on Lilly's past, he agreed that it sounded like a milk protein allergy and sent us for allergy testing.

We continued to avoid dairy but had a few silly slip ups, the worst being mashed potato at a restaurant. The first 6 pictures below were the result of a few spoons of mashed potato. The next few were from soldier eggs and toast. It's only a very light rash but still there. We assumed I had put too much margarine on her toast because she had eaten both egg and margarine on toast many times.

About 2 weeks ago, it was finally time for Lilly to have her allergy testing done! She was very brave while the top allergens were tested (milk, egg yolk, egg white, white fish, shellfish, peanuts, sesame seeds). To our surprise, both egg white AND milk came up positive! 

 

After meeting with the specialist after her test was finished, we came to the conclusion that Lilly is allergic to the uncooked protein in both milk and eggs. This means she can tolerate it in her system when very well cooked (180 degrees for 20 mins). Anything less results in an allergic reaction, which in her case is hives. She is still too small for an epi-pen so we must be very careful. Lilly still loves quiche for dinner on occasion but we are very careful to avoid anything that may not have the proteins cooked out enough. We have been rash free ever since the appointment!

It has been a very stressful and scary few months while trying to determine what was going on. I often wonder whether starting on solids too early may have contributed to her allergies? It's very bizarre because she tolerated milk based formula for about a month as a newborn!

Our experiences with baby led weaning

My views on parenting have definitely changed since I had Lilly. Before her, I thought mothers that baby wore, coslept and breastfeed for longer than a year were crazy hippies! Now that she's here, I am definitely embracing the natural parenting and gentle parenting ways of doing things and that now includes baby led weaning. I had read a little about it before Lilly was born and thought I might give it a go and mix it with some puree food. My online mother's group have been very supportive and we have all been learning about the ins and outs together and I eventually found myself in a Baby Led Weaning facebook group which taught me a lot.

So what is baby led weaning I hear you say? It's basically letting your baby feed themselves finger food without the use of any puree's. There's a big emphasis on baby deciding how much they want to eat (and how much to moosh). There are lots of benefits in doing solids this way. It teaches them fine motor skills and boosts their coordination. Baby led weaning also exposes them to lots of textures early on which is supposed to help avoid having a fussy toddler down the track. The chewing motions are supposed to help with speech development which is a big win too. But most of all, it's a whole lot of fun! Lilly is always so happy when it's time for food and we always know when she's had enough because the smooshing, throwing and smacking of food begins. She is learning how much food she can handle and when she's ready to stop eating. 

 

With Lilly being a preemie, we weren't really sure when to start introducing her to food. Once she hit 6 months real age, we sat her up in the high chair and I gave her a little taste of my mango smoothie. To say she was unimpressed with being spoon fed is an understatement. The look on her faces says it all.

 

After that experience, I thought that maybe she wasn't quite ready yet. I did some more research and read that true baby led weaning doesn't involve any puree food. I read that babies are ready when they can pick up and move toys to their mouths very easily; can sit unsupported or with little assistance; and when they are making lots of chewing motions when playing. With this, I managed to convince my husband that we wouldn't know if she was ready until we tried. We decided to give her a little piece of toast one morning which she chewed and sucked on quite happily. Success! Later that day, we gave her some mango which she also loved. And so our baby led weaning journey began!

 

 

Over the next few weeks, Lilly tried lots of new foods. We had sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, banana, avocado, pear, carrot, spaghetti pasta and broccoli - her very favourite! I was very anxious watching Lilly eat. I would scoop any chunks out of her mouth that she happened to gnaw off. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I was so scared, especially when she gagged. I tried to stick to relatively soft foods until we both built up our confidence. As you can see by the photos, she was always very happy as she ate.

We did have one minor set back when I introduced yoghurt. I was pre-loading the spoons for her and letting her feed herself. It looked as though she was loving it but a rash quickly developed. We raced her up to the doctors and found that she was allergic to something in the yoghurt. A few weeks later we sought another opinion and we are now waiting for further testing.

 

 

By Christmas, Lilly was 7 months old and we had been powering on with lots of soft foods and I had stopped scooping food out of her mouth. I trusted in her ability and she was doing so well! I even stopped cooking separate meals for her and embraced baby led weaning in the way it was meant to be.

 

We are now a month and a half into our baby led weaning journey (7.5 months old) and we now offer Lilly whatever we are eating most of the time. I have started packing lunches for her when we are out and about and we are generally having 2-3 meals a day and maybe a few snacks here and there too. I am mostly struggling with lunches though so I have started doing meal plans to keep me accountable and trying new things. At the moment, she is loving fruits! 

 

To begin with, we made sure all foods either had natural handles (meat on the bone, broccoli, banana with skin on the bottom etc) or was cut into my own finger length sticks. This was much easier for Lilly to hold on to and bring to her mouth. Now that we have been doing this for a little while, we is much better at manipulating foods so we don't worry as much with this. In the last week, we have tried some different shaped things like strawberries which she has LOVED!

 

I am so pleased we chose this path and couldn't be prouder of our clever little girl!

 

 

Keep in mind that this is just my experience with baby led weaning. Please follow the advice given from your own medical practitioner and make sure to read up on the benefits and disadvantages of anything you want to try.