A Busy Mama’s Honest Thoughts on Going Gluten and Dairy Free

I wasn’t going to post about this until I had some experience under my belt. But what the fun in that 😉

Sebastian has had some weird allergies since he was born if I really look back. I went dairy free for a while when he was about two months old because he had really bad colic, it helped for a bit and then I added some dairy back in with no visible issues. Then when he was one year old, he had a really bad reaction to store-brand whole wheat bread – strange right? We narrowed that down because a few weeks later he had the same reaction from eating store-brand whole wheat bread. He can successfully eat Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat, so we chalked it up to a preservative because he had no other issues. Then slowly over time, other random foods would irritate him, but we’ve not been able to pinpoint exactly what is going on.

I’ve noticed more recently that he’s been getting red bags under his eyes more and more often so I talked to his pediatrician about setting up some allergy testing (which I have yet to do).

I was chatting with some girl friends a couple weeks ago and food allergies came up in conversation – many of them have major food allergies in their families and it intrigued me, so I started asking about the weird stuff I’ve been seeing in Sebastian. We got talking about gut health (which I am still learning about) and how dairy and gluten effect our systems. I am still not completely sure how it all works but I started paying a little more attention to the things he was eating and when his red bags were showing up.

My “tests” revealed that milk was the culprit, but it’s also been clear that certain gluten’s give him a rash as well.

So, here I am, the week before Thanksgiving using up all our dairy and wheat products and taking a paleo approach to our meal planning.  Since it is the week before Thanksgiving and our next month and a half is going to be a bit crazy, I am just going to work on substituting when I can, and letting some things slide (at least for hubby, Sterling and I) when I can’t. I am not going to go crazy about watching Sebastian’s gluten intake, but I am going to really cut out his dairy intake.

I went shopping for the first time tonight, talk about overwhelming. I spent WAY more than I wanted or probably even needed to because I felt so lost. I definitely didn’t realize the struggle mama’s go through when starting or traveling on this food allergy journey. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I definitely didn’t think I’d be writing this either.

I feel way in over my head and I am probably one of the least happy people about doing this. I enjoy my snacks and my cheese, my breads and my icecream, my half and half and my pasta. I enjoy easy meals and processed food, especially since life has been so super crazy lately. I enjoy the conveniences. And honestly, I’m a picky eater. There I said it. I don’t like all the healthy, good for you, food. I like simple, blander tastes – consistencies I can count on. This is going to be hard. (wow do I sound super selfish right now or what?)

But, I do know its best for my family right now. So I am going to be weaning myself off those things over the next month and we are going to give paleo a 30 day chance come January. Pray for us folks. This isn’t going to be an easy transition in our home.