Bye Bye Dairy

My journey with breastfeeding started with out much of a hitch. My son latched well from day one and loved to nurse. Around two months old we found out he had reflux and it was suggested that we give him formula with cereal in it because it would sit firmer in his stomach. I kindly said “No, thank you.” to the idea and continued exclusively breastfeeding my son and taking other measures to reduce the discomforts of reflux.

When he was four months old we discovered that he had a dairy intolerance. If I ate any dairy he would have extreme gastrointestinal upset. I was told that I either needed to give up all dairy from my diet or could switch him to non dairy formula. For me, there was no decision to be made. I was not about to stop breastfeeding and quickly removed all dairy from diet. This was quite a challenge being in that I am some one who eats cheese on everything and absolutely loves ice cream. I had many people tell me how silly it was of me to give up dairy when it would be so easy to simply switch Trent to a non dairy formula. Many people tried so hard to tell me how the formulas of today are the same as breast milk. I simply ignored their attempts to get me to stop breastfeeding. I knew that breast milk was by far the best nutrition for my son and was willing to do anything to provide him with that. I lived a non dairy lifestyle for 8 months, until my son turned one. At that time he was able to tolerate dairy when it was in his breast milk.

My son is now 26 months old and has continued to breastfeed and continued to thrive. If I had it to do all over again I would make the same decisions. There is no sacrifice too big to give your child the best start to life.

A personal story by Karen S.