Milk Issues with 3 Year Old

I agree, with an elimination diet. Do an elimination diet with dairy products and then later a separate elimination diet for lactose free products. He IS having a problem with dairy! If he does happen to have an allergy,or intolerance...it is very bad for his body and immune system, to keep eating dairy. It will cause his body not to absorb nutrients, becuase he could have a leaky gut. Google elimination diet and you will find many pages of good information.

This sounds like lactose intolerance or possibly a dairy allergy. You can give your son lactose-free dairy products and see if that makes a difference. You can also do an elimination diet where you take out all dairy for awhile and then slowly reintroduce them one by one into his diet. This does not at all sound like the flu.

I agree that he cannot process dairy at this time, and so you should switch to soy or rice. The problem is not permanent, however - he is missing something that allows him to process the milk protein, but that problem can be addressed. I agree about not just giving him drugs, but actually treating this. You can go through a lot of testing (expensive and frustrating) or you can use a children's supplement. I have a ton of friends (including a lot out by you in Iowa!) who have done this with their kids. It's completely safe - it's given to preemies on feeding tubes who cannot nurse and kids who have "failure-to-thrive" - you might want to learn more and talk to some other parents who have solved this problem. Happy to help more.

Milk and dairy products are the biggest thing to avoid when a child is sick or has an upset stomach...so I wouldn't be too quick to determine your son's issues as caused by dairy (though I wouldn't rule it out, either). I would avoid it for now as if he does have a cold or flu...dairy will make him feel terrible. Once he is back to normal, try it once in a while.

It does sound like a milk thing, since you notice the puking pattern is connected to milk and dairy products. It's interesting that you say it's whole milk that is the problem; usually the protein or lactose is the problem. You could experiment with taking either whole milk or milk fat out of his diet. We did that with my daughter (taking milk out entirely and putting her on soy milk) and it helped.

Your son is definitely lactose intolerant. I'm lactose intolerant and can handle a little dairy, but anything more and I get horrible stomach aches and constipation or diarrhea. It sounds like your other children might be as well. Cut out dairy for a week and see if things let up. Then slowly add things back in until you figure out how much he can eat before he has symptoms. That is how I control it.

If he was allergic to dairy (whey, casein, etc), he woudn't be able to tolerate any dairy, but since he can drink a little bit of lower-fat content milk, it definitely points to lactose intolerance.

This totally sounds like a lactose issue. Stop giving him dairy completely right now. Give his system some time to recover. Soy & rice milk are the standard alternative but Goat milk is the favortie in our household.

If after a while you want to start intoducing dairy back into his system start slow. start with cultered items first, yougurt, sour cream etc. These are already somewhat broken down so it is earier on the digestive system. Then hard cheeses. If these are handled well over time then you can move on to soft cheeses, milk & ice creams. Also avoid dairy when his immune system is weak as it will be even harder for him to digest the lactose then.

my son had milk issues as a baby also-we ended up switching him to that canned baking milk-cant think of the name-i diluted it an added liquid vitamins-he finally out grew it-hes 28 now-eats an drinks dairy with no problems...good luck

My 2 1/2 year old has a dairy sensitivity, but it's not lactose intolerance. She used to get rashes on her face or neck (anywhere a dairy product touched her skin when she was eating or drinking) and then get hives on her torso within the next hour. Her pediatrician tested her for dairy allergy, and we were told she is not fully allergic and would likely grow out of the sensitivity over time. A couple of times after she turned two, we let her have dairy (mac and cheese, some yogurt), and she's thrown up both times. Just like you said--no fever or sign of illness, and totally happy and fine after throwing it all up.

She's been drinking rice or soy milk since she was one, eats non-dairy cheese, soy yogurt, etc. The rice and soy milks she drinks are all fortified with calcium and other vitamins, but they tend to be pretty low-fat. Since she can't drink whole milk and healthy fats are very important for brain development in little ones, we give her lots of avocados, which she loves. (This is what our pediatrician recommended.)

Good luck!

I would say they are lactose intolerant. If it was the flu, they would have fever. Try organic whole milk, soy or goat milk. If they still have stomach aches, then check with your ped for another alternative.

My son has milk allergies, he had eczema and asthma in the past. I don't know where you live, but we learned about Allergy Associates of La Crosse in Wisc. My cousin took her daughter there and her milk allergies have improved to the point where she has no more issues. They treat the cause of the allergy, they don't just give you drugs like more traditional allergists. You give your child allergy antigens in drop form under the tongue 3 times a day. We started in August and have already noticed improvement. They do this kind of treatment a lot in Europe and it's starting to get noticed here in the US. Just a thought, here is their website:
http://www.allergy-solutions.com/default.aspx