A Dairy Sensitivity

I think James was probably only 2-3 months old when I figured he had some eczema on his back. Like Leah, he too got a bad bout of "newborn acne". Those annoying little red bumps covering their beautifully sweet and new baby faces. It bugged us, not them. And it really felt like, for both children, that it seemed to last a lot longer than what the "estimated time" was.

He's now almost 17 months old and although "newborn acne" is 14-15 months in his past, we've still been battling extremely dry skin, mainly on his back and shoulders and backs of the arms, and occasionally lower legs too. I thought maybe it was worse because of the dry winter weather. I used so many different types of creams. And none worked. I mentioned it to my doctor and she didn't prescribe anything other than just to "moisturize more". Well, I was.

Anyways, my very good friend who also happens to be Holistic Nutritionist told me that the most common cause for eczema was dairy.

James can drink 3 sippy cups of milk a day. We go through almost 4L of milk in a week. Plus he had a yogurt or two each day along with cheese as well. Basically, my 16 month old was a walking little dairy product. I would say 85% of his diet was dairy.

She recommended goat's milk as a substitution. At first I bought 2%, and he took to it immediately, not even noticing a difference. Then my husband bought the 3.25% for the fat content. Obviously James didn't argue. The kid loves milk. Actually, I like it too! I find it tastes cleaner somehow, and creamier. Leah drank it too without hesitation. Until her father asked if she liked the goat's milk mommy bought. Ha!

So, yeah, apparently goat's milk is actually the closest thing to human milk out there! It's almost 3X the price that I was paying for 4L of regular cow's milk, but it's worth it. Because his eczema? It's still there, still "dry feeling" but its improved incredibly! It's like magic!!

Today I went to pick up another 4L (haha!) and while I was there I also picked up a container of goat's milk plain yogurt. I am not fan of that. It's sour tasting and I think probably an acquired taste. But I defrosted some strawberries and added a small amount of sugar and mixed it all together and it was a hit with James!

I'm actually excited to see how well his skin is doing within the next couple of months!