Toddler Reaction to Reintroduced Foods

[lizg]

We removed dairy from my daughter's diet for a month (she's 21 mos.). We are 100% gluten free and mostly Paleo/Primal at home but she eats lunch at daycare and their food is definitely SAD. I pushed for this elimination even though my husband and her doctor don't think she has issues with dairy. (Truthfully I think it's the gluten in her diet more than dairy, but it was easier to remove dairy than gluten so we tried that first.) We didn't see a dramatic improvement over the month but I was curious to see what would happen when we reintroduced.

She ate one meal with some cream cheese last week and had no immediate reaction. That was Thursday lunch, and Friday night she spent the night at my in-laws. Although she sleeps there regularly (overnight and naps) it was the first time she was away from us overnight. My MIL decided to sleep in the room with her which didn't help and she was up a lot during the night. When she came home to us on Saturday she was like a different kid. She was unhappy, crying and whining almost non-stop, had an extremely short nap, and had a very hard time falling and staying asleep that night. I was very worried at first but thankfully she's getting back to her old self now.

I am wondering if this could be a delayed reaction to the dairy. When I google it, many sources list sleep and mood disturbances when reintroducing foods as a sign that a sensitivity exists. Of course my skeptical husband thinks it was because of her lack of sleep, disrupted schedule, and being away from us for the first time. Has anyone had experience with testing foods in kids and seen this kind of reaction? If not, what signs did you see to convince you the food needed to be eliminated?

This is the first time I've participated in a message board, if I'm doing something wrong please let me know! 

[EJ]

You're doing great!

I'm no reintroduction expert, but I would say to let her little system calm down a bit...and then try it again. These experiments are the only way we can figure out how things really affect us. It's possible the sleep and stress were behind it. So let her recover, then try another little bit of dairy on a normal day/night (without an overnight elsewhere) and see how she takes it.

And remember that some people have different reactions to different kinds of dairy. Raw vs. pasteurized can make a difference. Some people tolerate cheese but not milk. I've even heard of people tolerating hard cheeses but not soft So test out different types...but separately, so you can try to tease out any unique reactions.

This post is a little more detailed than you need (and you're obviously not coming off AIP), but it lists the symptoms to look for.

And, finally, keep in mind that the cream cheese might not have had anything to do with her changed mood & sleep schedule...perhaps it was something she ate at daycare or at her grandparents' house. There are a lot of factors at work in our daily lives and all we can do is try to tease out the effects by doing these little experiments.

Hope you can figure it out!

[dawnhbrewer]

I would also look at it being a reaction to corn syrup and/or high fructose corn syrup. Some food dyes also cause this. My daughter has this same reaction if she eats so much as a jelly bean. Her reaction is 24 hours after eating it. It became especially obvious to us once we cleaned up out diet (no dairy or grains). Everything has corn syrup in it so you have to study every label. We also avoid all dressings, sauces, and condiments at restaurants. It's in everything.

I hope this helps. I know I didn't address the dairy but your description sounded like what we've observed with corn.

Dawn

[lizg]

Corn is an interesting idea - maybe the combination of corn and cream cheese really did her in (it was enchiladas that she ate, with corn tortillas). I know she doesn't digest corn well because they feed it to her often at daycare (their "vegetable" of the day - ha!) and it ALL comes out in her diaper.