Both of my boys have had issues from birth with cow’s milk protein and I believe it’s extremely common in babies. We have heard of lots of people who have issues with cow’s milk and their babies. With Buddy I just switched him to goat’s milk formula and every month or so tried him with a fromage frais. By the time he was a year, he was starting to tolerate yoghurt and eventually switched to cow’s milk around 14 months and we’ve never looked back.

Bubbles on the other hand, is a different story altogether. He was so ill when I was breast feeding him that I had to switch my diet and eliminate dairy and many other things. We tried him on normal formula, but he was following the same pattern as Buddy so I switched him to goat’s milk. Almost overnight the green snotty nose ceased and I knew it was a cow’s milk intolerance. But Bubbles is now 14 months and he is not showing many signs of growing out of it. So much so that I took him to the doctor again who referred us for allergy testing. It took us 16 weeks to get an appointment and we sat for ages waiting. Our appointment was short and sweet! I felt like such a fool, they wouldn’t allergy test him as the symptoms weren’t severe enough, fair do’s. The doctor also gave me a row for switching him to goat’s milk as she felt he wasn’t getting the right nutrition and then referred me onto a dietician.

The dietician was brilliant, she explained how the lactose in the cow’s milk works and how I could try to introduce cow’s milk into his diet gradually. I’m just going to give top line what we’ve been asked to do, if you feel this is something you want to do for your children then please get advice first:

Stage 1 – Baked milk products
Stage 2 – Boiled milk
Stage 3 – Yoghurt or fromage frais
Stage 4 – hard cheese
Stage 5 – uncooked pasteurised cow’s milk
Stage 6 – continue on for 5 days, then challenge complete

So we are at stage 3, we’ve taken our time with this as I want to be sure he is actually tolerating it and not just building up a resistance to it again. Sometimes he can take 5 days of yoghurt then he is really vomitus for a week. Now Buddy has been ill with sickness earlier on in week but by 7 days of having fromage frais Bubbles was really vomitus and his nose is like a green snot tap and that’s with me wiping it constantly. It makes me feel sick. So today I feel like giving up, I have tried and tried and with no one to talk to at the hospital – They just sent me away with a sheet of instructions, no follow up, no one to ask if this normal, I just feel like stopping it. I don’t think this is working. He is so fractious all the time since we started introducing the cow’s milk, has constipation (another sign of not tolerating cow’s milk) and short of calling the doctor and taking him up there to get referred again, I can’t think of anything else to do.

Given that we waiting 16 weeks the first time, you’d think that at least we would have a point of contact to speak to for more information rather than going through the whole process again and wasting everyone’s time and administration fees.

Has anyone any advice? Anyone been through similar and come out the other end? Or did you, like me, decide that actually, even though it’s costing you 10 x the cost of cow’s milk, you continue on the route of substituting cow’s milk so they don’t have to eat it?

I’d love to know your experience