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Well, this is one day of meals that you guys certainly won’t be jealous of.
Up to this point, I have been taking a gradual approach to an elimination diet, eliminating just one to two allergens each week to see if we saw any improvements with our baby’s symptoms. I mostly did it this way because I love eating a variety of foods, and I didn’t want to cut out more than I had to! However, I haven’t seen any major improvements since the very first week that I cut out wheat and dairy– even after progressively cutting out other common allergens like soy, corn, peanuts, eggs, tree nuts and chocolate.
Luckily, we have really seen some positive changes since I cut out all traces of wheat and dairy in my diet. (I’m not sure if both were necessary, but we’ll deal with introducing them separately later.) Our baby is no longer vomiting or showing any signs of acid reflux, and he’s sleeping well at night. We’re up to 5-6 hour stretches! Woo-hoo!
The only nagging symptom that he can’t seem to overcome is consistently producing “slimy” diapers (sorry, TMI). Our doctor isn’t concerned, because our little guy is growing perfectly and has no fever, so he’s left the decision up to me– I can continue the elimination diet to see if his diapers improve, or I can throw in the towel and wait for my baby to grow out of it, which he most likely will in the next few months, regardless. The doctor also mentioned that there’s a chance our baby isn’t intolerant to any other foods in my diet, and that his abundant drooling may actually be causing the diaper issues at this point. So, it’s anyone’s guess!
Rather than continuing to eliminate one thing at a time, which could take forever, I’ve decided to dive into the elimination diet that Dr. Sear’s recommends for breastfeeding moms. It’s much more strict than I would like, but it’s probably the fastest way to deduce if anything else in my diet is affecting our baby. Plus, it’s only two weeks long. If after the next two weeks nothing changes, we’ll be more certain that nothing else in my diet is irritating him!
You can read more about Dr. Sear’s elimination diet here, but the basic idea is that you eat the most hypoallergenic foods from each food group. These foods include:
- Range-fed turkey or lamb
- Baked or boiled white or sweet potatoes
- Rice or Millet
- Cooked green and yellow squash
- Pears or fresh pear juice
Yep, that’s it. I can add salt and pepper to my meals, but no other oils or seasonings are included until I’m ready to start adding foods back into my diet. After the initial two weeks, or sooner if we see improvement, I’ll add back one food every four days to find out which foods might negatively affect our little guy. This way we’ll find out if a random food, like bananas or mushrooms, might be upsetting his digestion! It’s not fun, but I figure it’s the most conclusive way to figure this stuff out– and as quickly as possible, too.
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So, here’s what my meals have been looking like these days:
Most of my meals these days are pretty sporadic– I just choose whichever food sounds most appealing at the moment, and eat until I am satisfied. This might mean a couple fresh pears for breakfast, followed by a steamed sweet potato as a late-morning snack, and a bowl of plain millet after that.
At first, I tried to keep my meals properly combined, making a “soup” out of lamb steaks (cooked with the bone-in for a nutrient-rich bone broth) and zucchini squash, but the lamb is really unappealing to my palate. So, I’ve been adding sweet potatoes to my soup to make it easier to enjoy. I’ve been having several bowls of this soup throughout the day, since it’s my only source of dietary fat until I can start including more foods back into my diet!
Oh, the things we will do for our children.
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Reader Feedback: What are YOU eating this week? (I’m going to be jealous!)
Did the diet help? I am starting it tomorrow
It did help a little, but not 100%. Eventually, everything resolved itself and I didn’t need to follow a restrictive diet anymore, even while breastfeeding.
I’m going through this right now… and it’s tough. My poor guy is 6 months old and has had a ton of different symptoms indicating food allergies. He has had diarrhea every single day for over 6 weeks now. Some days I would notice mucus, which was very concerning to the doctor and indicates that there is inflammation in the body, likely from a food allergy. Like you, I had been journaling and slowly taking out foods that I suspected where allergenic. I’ve now been reduced down to the Elimination Diet and have been on it for 5 days. I’m calorie deficient, nutrient deficient and I’m seeing no improvement in his diarrhea or his eczema. His crazy big spit ups seem to have gone away after eliminating Dairy. I also made a direct connection from his terrible crying spells to soy products, so probably not touching dairy or soy for a very long time. I’d connected his skin issues to *possibly* berries or maybe citrus.
Hoping things improve.
Anika
Did things get any better for you ? Going through the same thing and my babe is 8 months old today … May just give up the tED I’m on..
Hello – abt to start all this myself with my 5mo who has terrible eczema. Any results ?
Hi Megan. Thanks so much this. I’m going through similar problems with my 1 month old. She has yellowish poop sometimes very mucousy and at times they have some green mucous or are completely green. A few times they have been explosive and gotten all over her legs and even gone up her back. At 1 week old I eliminated dairy because she had a string of blood one time and the doctor said it might be due to a milk allergy. However, things haven’t gotten better. There was blood only once in her stool but she has trouble sleeping. She seems to sleep longer when I’m holding her upright and I let her sleep in my arms but that prevents me from doing anything. It’s been really hard for me. Also, she spits up a lot if I put her down, even after 1/2 hour of holding her in an upright position. I held her last night for about an hour and put her down. And about 1/2 hr later she woke up very fussy. She kept squirming around and making sounds with her mouth as if something didn’t taste right. I picked her up and felt her tummy was upset and making sounds. I haven’t taken her to the doctor as she does have a lot of wet diapers and I weigh her at home and she has been gaining weight. Not sure if it’s as much as she should be gaining every day but she is gaining. I don’t know what else to do but this total elimination diet to see if it helps. I cut out eggs a few weeks ago too but still ate corn, wheat and nuts. So it could be one of those? I hope I find out what’s going on with my little one. But did want to ask you how you made that turkey stew where you added the potatoes. I don’t eat lamb because there are certain animals I refuse to eat and I’m not a fan of turkey but will eat it so I can get my protein. Can you please share how you made that? Or maybe email it to me at meliespinal@gmail.com. Also, you only ate pears for breakfast for the entire time you were on this diet? And you only seasoned with salt and pepper? I want to make sure I do this correctly.
I starting the diet tomorrow. When did he outgrow the mucus? Did he outgrow his allergies??
I can’t remember exactly now– it seems like forever ago! I believe it was around 6 or 8 months.
Hi! Did you figure out what food(s) your son wasn’t tolerating well? I have a 4 month old and we are having very similar problems. Curious! Thanks 🙂
His biggest triggers were dairy and soy. Whenever I ate soy he quickly developed a terrible diaper rash, and the dairy seemed to cause especially painful gas. The slimy diaper thing turns out to have been pretty normal, though. He did grow out of it!
Hi Megan-
I’m about to embark on this. I’m so overwhelmed by what I can / can’t eat. Curious, did you see results?
I’m doing it right now as well, I’m about 5 days in. It’s tough and I’m losing a lot of weight. I’m also taking a multivitamin and a calcium supplement. My son has had so many issues and he’s six months old this week. I’ve conclusively determined that Dairy and soy and caffeine really upset his tummy. Now I’m just trying to take out everything else so that hopefully his ongoing diarrhea stops.