Annilee’s Story: Having a Baby with Dairy Intolerance

When our son was born, he was calm…until they took him away to do his vitals…and then he screamed. He actually sounded like a flock of seagulls, it was so loud and screechy. My husband and I looked at each other and wondered what I had just given birth to! Our first son was calm – he ate and slept and got really chubby, slept and ate some more – he was the most wonderful first baby!

Not that we didn’t love our second, but the screaming was a bit unreal for a child only a few minutes old! He was calm when being held (mostly). I don’t think he slept at all in the hospital though. Once home, he woke up every two hours around the clock and we thought we might never sleep again. When he was awake, he was fussing, gassy or pooping, or projectile vomiting. I wanted to send him back. I could not understand why this was happening. Problems always seem worse when you’re sleep deprived too!

Life went on like this for a few months and we had all sorts of suggestions, like it must be colic. It wasn’t colic. The doctors just shrugged and said he was a fussy baby and some just are. He’ll outgrow it. So I waited…I tried to watch what I ate as I was nursing, but nothing seemed to help. He was gassy and fussy and the crying was so exhausting.

The crying and fussing gradually turned to whining, which people told us must be teething – to some degree, sure, but he’d been like this since birth – and he certainly wasn’t teething then!

When he was around 18 months, I’d had it with his fussiness, gassiness, and weird poop – and no doctor giving me any thoughts about why – just telling me to use Ovol drops…we were using a LOT of them!

I turned to some homeopathic remedies and sought out a good Naturopath. From the first few minutes of me telling him things that went on, he knew right away there was likely an intolerance to milk protein. I had thought of this, but not as in depth as he had. So after this appointment, we cut out all dairy products (including the by-products) and within a few days, noticed a huge difference!

Our little nightmare was sleeping well during the day and at night, he wasn’t nearly as whiney, and he suddenly had normal bowel movements and hardly any gas!

While I feel like a bit of a dork for not knowing sooner and certainly have some “mommy-guilt” for giving him things he shouldn’t have ever eaten, life goes on. I am just thankful to have found out what the root of the issues were and to have a happy little guy now!

Don’t get me wrong, that first year and a bit he had learned that when he screamed, we would hold him – we just wanted it to stop! So now, he is a bit of a dramatic little one, but we at least feel more confident now that we know he’s just being a two year old and doesn’t have an upset tummy.