Breastfeeding with cow's milk protein allergy

DAIRY-FREE INFO

First of all, let me just encourage you that eating dairy-free, while not always fun or easy, is certainly not impossible. It can be tough sometimes, but when you see the difference it makes in your baby, it is definitely worth it. After a while, you’ll get used to your new diet, and if you can remember that you’re not going to be eating this way forever, it makes it easier to bear during the time that you’re nursing. And you’re not alone! I’ve talked to many, many women who have had to temporarily live with these dietary restrictions.
I also want to preface all of this by saying that I am not a doctor, nurse, dietician, or lactation consultant. But I am a mother of four young children, and I have had to go dairy-free while nursing all four of them. So while I may not be an expert in any of those fields, I do feel that I am pretty good at eating with these restrictions! Here’s how I discovered this milk protein issue:
From birth, my oldest daughter was extremely fussy. She would scream for a couple of hours straight every evening and wouldn’t respond to anything we did to calm her down – even nursing. When I did try to nurse her, she would arch her back and pull off, and I began to realize that something was drastically wrong. In desperation, I called our wonderful lactation consultant, and she asked if we had milk allergies in the family. My husband does have a milk protein allergy, and so she suggested that I try cutting out dairy. Within hours, my baby was a different child. She wasn’t crying and screaming like she had been, and her diapers changed from green and mucousy to regular old breastfed-baby yellow. Because I saw such a drastic difference in my daughter’s behavior and comfort level, I was very willing to eliminate dairy again while nursing each new baby.
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In general, you’re going to need to cut dairy completely out of your diet. Some women think that as long as they’re not drinking milk or eating ice cream, they’re keeping the baby from being affected by it. But there are so many foods that contain dairy that you’re going to really have to be careful about reading labels. The ingredients you want to avoid are milk, milkfat, cheese of any kind, butter, whey, casein, etc. There is a more complete list on a website that I love, which is listed at the end of this packet. Reading labels has gotten so much easier than it was before 2006 when they started putting “contains milk ingredients,” etc. on the products!! But don’t always assume that just because it doesn’t say that on the label, it’s totally dairy-free. Check for yourself.
So what can you eat?? Below you will find a list of the foods that I used to eat, along with suggestions from friends of mine who have gone through this too. I hope this is helpful to you!

There are lots of great things at Trader Joe’s that are good:
Several kinds of potato chips
The oatmeal chocolate chip and the regular chocolate chip Vegan cookies, which
are surprisingly good!
Chocolate chip chewy coated granola bars – these are really good when you have
a chocolate craving. They’re near the oatmeal and cereal.
The semi-sweet chocolate chips – you can make chocolate chip cookies with
Trader Joe’s chips and regular Crisco Sticks instead of butter, and they’re
delicious! This is really important, because eating really good chocolate chip
cookies always made me feel like I wasn’t being deprived.
The granola cereal called “Just the Clusters” – vanilla & almond. I eat this with
chocolate chips sometimes as a snack. It’s good! There’s also a granola cereal
called Granny’s Apple Granola, and both of these cereals are good with a
spoonful of peanut butter mixed in.
Their version of Shredded Wheat is dairy-free.
A good appetizer from Trader Joe’s are these things called “Bird’s Nests,” I
think…they’re in the frozen section, and they’re tempura-battered veggies that
come with soy sauce. They’re really tasty!
Sesame sticks (plain and honey-flavored)
Peanut butter-filled pretzels
They also have a great butter substitute called ‘Earth Balance’. It works as a
topping for bread, etc, and also is good when baking.
Many of their crackers are fine – like their Wheat Thins and Triscuits look-alikes
They have balls of pizza dough in the cold section near the produce, and they are
dairy-free. If you make pizza at home with a dairy-free sauce (which they have
there at TJ’s), and just leave off the cheese, you can make really great tasting pizza.
We also use the dough to make breadsticks.
Soy milk is great as a milk substitute. Although I don’t necessarily enjoy
drinking it straight, I’m told that it’s great, and can be used in cereal and as a
substitute for milk in other things, especially in baking. I did this many times,
and my family could never tell the difference.
Rice milk, which I haven’t tried but have heard is good.
Luna bars
Joe Joe cookies (just like Oreos – also come in vanilla). At Christmas time, they have
yummy ones with candy cane pieces in them.
Kettle corn
Dark chocolate Mint Creams (above the frozen food)
Dark chocolate-covered mini pretzels ( “ “ )

I’m told that they have a dairy-free pizza – I haven’t tried it yet, but I can’t wait!

I’ve heard that Lassen’s has great things too – I just don’t generally shop there, so I don’t know what they have.

Other dairy-free foods from other stores:
The Duncan Hines yellow cake mix, and the Duncan Hines Classic Chocolate Frosting
Junior Mints
Some dark chocolate bars
Almost every French or sourdough bread is fine, and some wheat breads are.
Fritos
Lay’s and ruffles potato chips (plain – most flavored ones are not okay, although
sometimes BBQ chips are)
Most tortilla chips
Triscuits
Wheat Thins
Some crescent rolls in the can
Some cinnamon rolls “
Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Pop-Tarts
Strawberry Pop-Tarts
Oreos
Mi-del cookies
Krusteaz blueberry muffin and lemon poppy seed mixes in the box
Rice milk – the vanilla flavor is particularly good
***WARNING***
There is dairy in very unexpected places, like in salami, some canned tuna, and some whitening chewing gums. Read labels very carefully!!

For meals at home:
For breakfast, I eat eggs a lot, fruit, toast or dairy-free cereal with peanut butter (as I mentioned above).
Lunch is usually leftovers, peanut butter and jelly with the kids, a turkey sandwich, or salad. I know you can’t have cheese on your sandwich, but I’ve found that loading it up with other toppings makes you forget there’s no cheese on it! I often put vinegar and oil dressing on sandwiches too.
Dinner –
grilled chicken or other meat, rice, French or sourdough bread, pizza with no cheese (see above), Asian food, pasta with olive oil or with dairy-free marinara, tacos and burritos (just leave off the cheese and sour cream), spaghetti with meat sauce, veggie or chicken soups, etc. Salads are great too, but just check your dressings for dairy.

EATING OUT:

Here are some things that I ate at different restaurants:
Jamba Juice: the Peach Pleasure is the only smoothie that has no citrus and no dairy if you substitute sorbet for the sherbet (some nursing moms have to cut out citrus because often babies who react to dairy can react to it too).
They now have a line of all-fruit smoothies which are great. And you can make almost any of their smoothies dairy-free by cutting out the sherbet or yogurt altogether or by asking them to use sorbet instead.
Getaway Café: I’ve always eaten the petit pair (chicken, tri-tip, rice, and beans), although I’ve never confirmed with them that they definitely put no dairy in any of it.
Jake’s: The beef plate or the chicken plate with green salad and rice – although someone told me recently that their chicken might have butter. Double check!
Baja Fresh: I checked and all tortillas and chips are dairy-free, so most things are fine. I’ve been getting the Baja Ensalada or the fajitas, but just be sure to ask for no cheese on the salad OR the beans if you get fajitas. Sometimes even when they leave it out of the meal, they still sprinkle it over the top.
Chipotle: The burritos or tacos are fine (without cheese or sour cream, of course), and the corn salsa is good if you’re avoiding tomatoes (citrus).
In ‘N’ Out: their buns and sauce are dairy-free, so hamburgers and fries are ok
Starbucks: soy mochas are really good – just be sure to ask for no whip cream. They just use soy milk instead of regular. For any coffee drinks that you get there, you need to check on the milk and also the powder that they use to make them.

-At Mexican restaurants, tacos with no cheese…taquitos (if they’re not made with cheese or cooked in butter) with salsa and guacamole…fajitas…burritos without cheese and sour cream…
-Chinese restaurants are great because almost everything is dairy-free.
-Italian restaurants are trickier, but sometimes pasta dishes are ok (just make sure their marinara doesn’t have cheese in it), and salads without cheese are usually a safe bet (but check the dressing). Pizzas with no cheese can also be surprisingly good, especially if there are lots of other toppings (but of course you have to ask about the crust ). Like I said, Italian restaurants are tricky.
McDonald’s: the Chicken Selects (white meat chicken strips) and buns are dairy-free, but french fries are not. They have nutritional info online at www.mcdonalds.com.
California Pizza Kitchen: a friend told me that when her friend took rice cheese from Lassen’s with her, they put it on a pizza for her without hesitation. However, in looking at their website, it looks like all of their pizza crusts have milk in them. I love the hummus and pita bread and the Kung Pao spaghetti, which are both fine. They have a good allergen table online at www.cpk.com.

If your family is going to get ice cream, you can always get sorbet (if they have it). At Baskin Robbins, they have several flavored ices (daiquiri, lime, etc.) and at Dewar’s they have strawberry ice (although they often seem to be out of it).
Pizza Hut and Domino’s both have very easy to read allergen tables, and they both have crusts that are dairy-free (www.pizzahut.com and www.dominos.com ).

I’ve researched a little bit and founds that the following restaurants have actual dairy-free menus online:
Chili’s (www.chilis.com)
Romano’s Macaroni Grill (www.macaronigrill.com)

You can usually find things on any menu that are dairy-free, and I’ve found that most places are really accommodating when I ask them about ingredients. Remember that you’re buying their products, so don’t be afraid to ask what’s in them. Most places are more aware of allergies than they used to be, so they seem to be more willing to check on these things now.

Also, it seems that most companies and restaurants I’ve emailed have quickly responded to let me know whether products or items on their menus contain dairy.
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There is an extremely helpful website that I’ve used quite a bit and highly recommend:
http://www.beanmom.com/nomilk.html

Like me, the author of this website is a mom who had to cut out dairy for the health of her nursing baby. It’s much more thorough than what I’ve written here, and she’s got a lot more of the science behind the allergy and details about vitamin supplements.

The website also has one particular feature that I love. Towards the very beginning of the webpage, she makes a reference and has a link to a site called ‘Kelly’s AP.’ If you click on the link, it gives you lots of great info, and under the section titled ‘Sensitivity to Cow’s Milk Proteins,’ there is a link called the ‘Hidden Dairy Cheat Sheet.’ If you click on this, it will lead you to a great resource – a little business card-sized list of ingredients that contain dairy. I wish I had found this sooner, because this would have been great to carry with me when shopping.


Good luck! You can do this, and if you find more dairy-free items that aren’t listed, please let us know and we’ll post them here!

Milena Nord