We have been milk free for the last month as part of our daughter’s food elimination. This weekend we were to introduce milk to see if there were reactions for the possibility of milk allergies. We made a weekend of it as we decided to test all the kids at the same time. (All for one and one for all!)

On Friday night we went to Movenpick for ice cream with waffles or pancakes. The kids were super excited as ice cream has always been a special treat. The kids straight away ordered the shared ice cream with pancakes while my husband and I enjoyed the waffles. Straight after our daughter finished her ice cream she started coughing and clearing her throat.

I have always been sensitive to milk growing up, although we never knew the information that is available now, so I just went on drinking it. As I  headed into adulthood I started getting stomach pains if I had full cream dairy, so switched to lighter versions as it was the high fat content in foods that caused a fat intolerance. I remember when I was young and visiting family, we were having ice cream and I started coughing while eating, but I still wanted to finish as it tasted so good to my young taste buds.

On Saturday we went to Coffee Club for lunch ordering milkshakes and toasted cheese ham fingers for the kids. Giving them a good variety of milk products. By the end of the weekend we had ice cream, milkshakes, cheese and yogurt. We didn’t go overboard with too much dairy or extra foods just added it into our normal weekend.

 Milk wasn’t the main contributor to our daughter and son’s runny eyes and nose or eczema. We did notice a few things over the weekend though – our daughter started getting a stuffy nose the day after we started introducing milk as well as the coughing and clearing of the throat. All the kids were restless and found it hard to settle and go straight to sleep after the weekend of dairy, normally they would be asleep within 30 minutes of going to bed (two to three hours later they were all still awake).

One of the interesting reactions we noticed from the dairy weekend was with our one year old who started banging his head a lot throughout the weekend. Thinking back through the no milk month we discovered he hadn’t been doing it like he was before we started the elimination. I decided see if anyone else had written about this symptom with milk and found there were other parents who’s young children would also bang their heads but when dairy was taken out of their menu they stopped.

We will continue to limit milk products while having the occasional foods when we go out. Our next food elimination will be ‘no wheat‘. I am expecting this month to be tougher than the last especially with having to remember what different items might have wheat in them when we aren’t at home.

 Debs.