The Breast Fed Baby and Mom's Diet

Studies strongly suggest that if your breast fed baby is colicky, it is worth a try to eliminate cow's milk from your diet. You will want to avoid cheese, ice cream, milk (in a glass or on cereal), yogurt, puddings, custards, cream sauces, and butter. This is not a quick fix, however. Cow's milk protein can remain in breast milk for up to two weeks after the mother has stopped eating dairy foods. To see whether dropping dairy really makes a difference for your child, have your dietary experiment last about 3 weeks. If the change in your eating habits does improve your baby's colic, you will probably want to avoid dairy at least until the typical colicky period is over -- when your baby is 12 to 16 weeks old. If your child's colic was severe and it turns out that he or she is especially sensitive to cow's milk protein, you may want to avoid dairy even longer. Although many babies become tolerant of cow's milk protein before their first birthdays, some children can take a full year or longer, and some never become tolerant.

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Comments

Anonymous's picture

thanks for publishing this!

5
I just gave birth to my second dairy intolerant child, and I think most babies are labeled colicky instead of dairy intolerant. It took us 4 months to figure out what was wrong with my daughter, so we immediately new something was wrong with my diet when my son was screaming with tummy pain all night at 3 days old. There is not enough information out there about this, and I feel allot of moms give up breastfeeding out of frustration due to this issue. Even in the breastfeeding guides at the hospitals, they make no mention of dairy intolerance. I've had to completely give up all dairy to breastfeed, but I have one happy baby now.
Anonymous's picture

Evelyn-soon to be mom for the second time

I was wondering about goat's milk. Is the risk for colicks and/or allergies lessen when nursing mom drinks goat's milk instead?