19 answers

12-Week-old Is Lactose Intolerant

Hello, I posted a while back about milk supply issues (it seemed mine was low and I've been pumping like crazy ever since) and very slow weight gain in my beautiful baby girl. I would like to hear others' experiences with lactose intolerant babies. What worked for you? What doctors did you see? What would you recommend?

Our story... This week, after weeks of slow weight gain and struggles with feeding her, we found out through a "reducing substances" test that she is "lactose intolerant" (the kind that she should grow out of). I was elated to find out what the problem was, but she is still refusing to eat much, even though we are giving her lactaid as directed by my doctor, as well as Zantac since she seemed to be having silent reflux. It's only been 2 and a half days on Lactaid but I am extremely discouraged. She is refusing both the bottle and breast so it is incredibly hard to feed her. I am so anxious and depressed and at a loss for what to do.

I have a hunch it is related to lactose overload, where she was not nursing effectively enough or long enough due to my initial oversupply (too much low-fat, high-lactose foremilk). She began showing difficulty nursing around 5 and a half weeks (gagging on the milk as it came out and pulling away) and it got worse and worse from there even though I tried nursing in side-lying and other positions to try and help her out. Her weight gain has been really slow and it scares me so much.

Thanks for any guidance or suggestions or POSITIVE encouragement. I am really low and could use a boost.

What can I do next?

So What Happened?™

It has been many months but I wanted to follow up. First I want to reiterate my gratitude to everyone who offered advice and support. A couple days after I posted here, my daughter was admitted to Children's Hospital. An OT witnessed her extremely intense eating refusal and all my feelings were validated. Something was seriously wrong.

She was given an NG (nasogastric tube) and put on hypoallergenic formula. We left the hospital five days later with the NG tube still in. It stayed in for two months, until I finally was able to wean her off of it, thank goodness. It was pretty horrible.

The theory is that she had severe reflux and cow's milk protein intolerance, though they are not sure. I'd given up dairy and soy and she still screamed her head off and arched severely at any attempt to feed her--by breast or bottle. She only fed when it was forced into her screaming mouth, which was not the way for any of us to live.

She is doing very well now. The NG tube is gone and she is fed hypoallergenic formula by bottle. It was so sad to give up breastfeeding, but for us, it was totally necessary and helped bring us closer!

You can read more about our experiences at my blog. Just google "life and times of stella johnson" if you are interested. Now that we are on the other side, I love to help support other parents going through the agony of feeding issues!

Thanks again!
A.

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I do not have any advice on the milk problem but having just gone through a child my son with Silent Reflux and him not sleeping more then 1 hour in a row until he was 9 months is to get her to the chiropractor now! We suffered for 9 months then we took him to the chiropractor and with a week he was off of prevacid had been on Zantac and out of his sleep wedge and sleeping over 15 hours in a row! It was amazing.

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Oh, how I feel for you! My daughter was a preemie, so we were that much more obsessed with her nutrition and weight gain. At about 6-weeks-old she started projectile vomiting. We tried Zantac, then Prevacid. Neither helped, and her reflux just got worse with blood in it. It was terrifying. Each time she would nurse, she would throw up, so then she wouldn't want to nurse and my milk supply went down. Her doctor said that if it was just reflux, the meds would have helped and that there must be another irritant in her stomach, so had me stop eating all dairy and soy. It was so hard, I was always starving but having a hard time finding things to eat (if you read ingredients, almost all food has some dairy or soy products in them!). I was taking fenugreek and trying to pump frequently, but my milk was still low. When I finally figured out some meals for me and ate more, it definitely helped my milk supply. My daughter's pediatrician said that it could take up to 8 weeks to get all of the dairy out of my system. During those 8 weeks we would keep her upright 24/7, sleeping with her on our chests on the couch in sitting. I took her to Children's hospital and had a custom foam wedge made for her - it was about 50 degrees and had bolsters and velcro straps - the works! It truly did take about 8 weeks though of me off dairy for her to get excited about eating/nursing and for us to be able to put her to bed in her wedge. I think she really did understand that nursing made her stomach hurt, so didn't want to nurse. I ended up back eating soy when she was 4 months old, but stayed off dairy the whole year I nursed her. I had to be incredibly aware of what I ate to make sure it had NO DAIRY! Even foods with nonfat dry milk would seem to upset her stomach. I tried the hypoallergenic formula to supplement her diet (Nutramagin), but she refused it. I couldn't blame her - it smelled so bad!! Plus, then when she would spit up, it smelled even worse!

Good luck! I would really recommend avoiding dairy and looking into getting a wedge made for your daughter. That combination really helped us! She is now almost 19 months old and tolerates cheese and yogurt just fine. She still drinks soy milk, but I'm hoping to transition to whole milk soon.

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It may sound silly, but cut your intake of dairy products. This will have a big impact on your daughter's digestion. Simethicone drops also work for indigestion problems and aren't as drastic as Zantac. If you have an over abundant supply of milk that it comes forth so much that it gags her, try feeding her more often, shorter durations, smaller amounts. Your flow won't be as fast, your body will adapt. It's quite common to have engorgement in the first few weeks until you and your baby adjust to the supply and demand cycle.
After she nurses intially, you can pump after to drain your breasts to the comfort level, freezing the milk to be used for those times you're not at home and she's with Dad or a sitter. She might have a 'failure to thrive' syndrome, your pediatrician should be contacted if she doesn't have at least 8 wet diapers a day. Don't let this go beyond 2 days. Have you changed your diet recently? Are you drinking a lot of coffee or tea? It takes time and patience on both your parts to get this nursing experience to a degree of pleasure for the both of you. You may find that hand expressing for a couple of minutes takes the pressure off so the flow is slower as well, making it more comfortable for her to nurse. Be sure to take her from the breast and burp often if she's having indigestion problems and taking air in with her milk.
Best wishes!!!

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Hi, my son had silent reflux as well. Have you changed your diet as well?
We tried Zantac and it did not make things better, it seemed to make things worse actually. We, instead, had 3 sessions of craniosacral work and I took dairy out of my diet. This combination really alleviated most symptoms and then by 6 months it was completely gone.
This is what worked for us, I know every child is different, and it wasn't easy.
If you want a recommendation for cranio......we saw Beth at Mississippi Health Center...also Carol Gray is another name that I have heard is great. Hope that helps!!

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I know you must be very worried. I have The Breastfeeding Answer book, it says Lactose intolerance falls into 3 categories:
1. a congenital inability to process lactose, very rare except in Scandinavian countries. (Galactosemia)

2.Lactose intolerance comes on gradually with age, this is what happens to 70% of the worlds population, this doesn't happen usually before age 4.

3.This seems like maybe what's going on with you. Intolerance due to damage to lining of the small intestine through allergies or illness. If you daughter is sensitive to dairy through your milk or something thing else I could see this
happening.

It says in the book to maximize the hindmilk your baby is getting, finishing one side until the baby is done then offering the other side. And adjust your diet and continue nursing.

Possibly you could pump some before you nurse so she gets less foremilk. HTH

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Does she actually seem hungry? Babies go through stages where they just don't eat much (maybe as little as every 5-6 hours), then a few days later they're nursing every 10 minutes.

I highly doubt that she's allergic to your breast milk, but she might be allergic to the dairy in your diet. You should remove that if you haven't already. Otherwise you should just relax and feed her when she wants to eat. You body is programed to feed her and will regulate the right amount of milk for your baby. I think that my breasts finally regulated at about 4-5 months (I made enough milk for 3 babies), but my best friend's regulated by 2 months.

My best friends son did a very similar thing as your daughter. He just wasn't a hungry for a while, but he always did eat when HE needed to.

Honey, relax! Your body is amazing! Your baby WILL eat when she needs to. There is no such thing as a baby that starves herself to death (that I know of). Nurse on demand. Don't force her if she's not interested. Stop reading horror stories and trust in your body. Relax!

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I totally hear where you are coming from. My little girl has the reflux and the dairy thing too (besides sleep issues too). First of all take things one day at a time and each issue as they come. Since you have done the tests with you to see what it was in the milk just make sure you don't have dairy if you can or at least not very much. You can eat your cereal dry with juice you get the point. You can try a wedge in the bed or to lift the bed up but that may not work if they move in bed and off of it (as my baby does). Having them on something like zantac or previcid isn't the end of the world. After a month or so for my baby of being on the meds, trying a wedge, changing what I eat, and giving her 1-2 bottles a day of Nutramigine she was just fine. Her doctor even told me I did what I needed to and did a good job figuring it all out. A couple of times at the begining she seemed to have some fall back and it seemed like her tummy hurt or something. Nothing would help I tried everything. Then I remembered from my first what mother said was to try a teaspoon of dark karo syrup in her bottle and well it worked.

She is now 6 month and with these adjustments in my diet and the suppliment (which is not bad to do at all) she is a happy and healthy little girl. Good luck to you.

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We figured out early on that my son couldn't tolerate lactose, so I cut out dairy while breast-feeding and since I also had low supply issues, we supplemented with a soy-based formula. Unfortunately, though, soy makes babies consitpated so my son did have some early problems with constipation. If he got backed up, under doctor's orders, I gave him an ounce of Gerber's apple juice for every month he was old. At one point that didn't work and we actually had him on medication at 9 weeks old to make him go. I think I mentioned before that he lost nearly a pound in the first week after he was born and came back up slowly. By the time he was 3 months old, though, he was a healthy, happy pudgy little guy! Hang in there as these things will get better the older they get! What does your doctor say about her weight gain? If your doctor isn't worried, I would try not to worry as well... It's really difficult, though, as you feel solely responsible for this little life! As long as she's gaining something and eating, though, it's a good sign. Friends of ours were always worried about their daughter being so small and she just turned 2 and is growing like a weed now. She also walked at 9 months old and was sitting up early, rolling over early, etc. And she eats more than any kid I know and she eats everything - vegetables too!! She is now catching up to other kids her age re weight and height and she's a very healthy active little girl. Good luck - I feel for you!

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