blueskink

My daughter has been on Neocate since she was 5 months old, after an elimination diet when I was breastfeeding was not able to identify what foods she was allergic to. Her allergy symptoms totally cleared up right away on Neocate, and she instantly became a much happier, healthier baby. She's now 14 months old and is weaned from the bottle, but she still gets about 15 oz. of Neocate in a sippy cup every day. I would like to wean her off of it completely because it's extremely expensive and our insurance no longer covers it.

She refuses cow's milk but likes yogurt and cheese, and she recently tested negative for a milk allergy. However, she still gets extremely fussy and clingy when she has dairy. I mean really fussy - like clinging to my leg all day, throwing tantrums, rarely smiling, and fussing for hours every day. She's not like that normally. I've been consistent about reinforcing good behavior, and the fussiness clearly gets better and worse depending on how much dairy she's eaten in the past few days. After a few days with no dairy she's her old happy self again...but I'm worried she won't get enough calcium once we stop the Neocate completely.

Any ideas for calcium-rich toddler foods that contain no dairy products? Can fortified rice milk provide enough calcium to meet a toddler's nutritional needs? She does like broccoli, but there's only so much broccoli a kid will eat...

My daughter is 13 months old, and she keeps getting her legs stuck between crib rails. I mean really stuck - it's difficult for me to wiggle them out, and there's definitely no way she could get them out herself. She's been doing this several times a day for two weeks now. I keep thinking she'll learn from experience and stop sticking her legs between the bars, but she hasn't stopped yet. She really doesn't seem to be doing it deliberately to get attention - it's clearly painful, and she screams when it happens. She's quite a good sleeper and is usually happy to go into her crib. I think she's just playing around with her feet, and her legs get wedged in.

We bought a new, good-quality crib when she was born, so the slats meet safety standards for spacing, etc. We can't use bumpers anymore because she's a great climber and would step on them to climb out. Any suggestions?

My daughter is allergic to latex and had cow's milk, beef, and soy allergies that required putting her on Neocate formula when she was 5 months old. She was still allergic to something else I was eating while breastfeeding, even after I'd completely eliminated all of the top ten allergens from my diet completely. We couldn't figure out what it was, but the symptoms cleared right up on Neocate. So we were expecting to find another food she's allergic to (probably one of the many fruits/veggies that cross-react with latex), and we've been carefully introducing her to new foods one at a time. Her original symptoms when breastfeeding were projectile vomiting, extreme fussiness and sleep problems, stuffy nose, and coughing - she never had hives before.

She's had hives all over her body for 11 days now. The doctor originally said it was a common virus, so we didn't realize it was hives at first (and thus weren't looking for associations with foods). It got worse and worse, and yesterday the doctor said it was hives and put her on Zyrtec. We stopped all the new foods we'd introduced recently and also washed all her bedding in hot water, vacuumed her room thorough, and even took apart her crib and wiped it down with bleach water (in case the hives were from an environmental allergy). Well, she still woke up this morning with more new hives.

How soon would Zyrtec would start working if it was going to help? Is it normal for hives to get a bit worse before they start getting better, even after the trigger has been removed? We're seeing the allergist soon, but our regular doctor didn't really seem sure...

My daughter is allergic to latex and had cow's milk, beef, and soy allergies that required putting her on Neocate formula when she was 5 months old. She was still allergic to something else I was eating while breastfeeding, even after I'd completely eliminated all of the top ten allergens from my diet completely. We couldn't figure out what it was, but the symptoms cleared right up on Neocate. So we were expecting to find another food she's allergic to (probably one of the many fruits/veggies that cross-react with latex), and we've been carefully introducing her to new foods one at a time. Her original symptoms when breastfeeding were projectile vomiting, extreme fussiness and sleep problems, stuffy nose, and coughing - she never had hives before.

She's had hives all over her body for 11 days now. The doctor originally said it was a common virus, so we didn't realize it was hives at first (and thus weren't looking for associations with foods). It got worse and worse, and yesterday the doctor said it was hives and put her on Zyrtec. We stopped all the new foods we'd introduced recently and also washed all her bedding in hot water, vacuumed her room thorough, and even took apart her crib and wiped it down with bleach water (in case the hives were from an environmental allergy). Well, she still woke up this morning with more new hives.

How soon would Zyrtec would start working if it was going to help? Is it normal for hives to get a bit worse before they start getting better, even after the trigger has been removed? We're seeing the allergist soon, but our regular doctor didn't really seem sure...

My daughter just turned 1 year old and weighs about 22 pounds. She has a Britax Roundabout convertible car seat that won't fit in the middle of the backseat if it's in the rear-facing position. It's unstable there, can't be tethered, and forces me to move the driver's seat so far forward that my legs are too jammed to drive safely. We've had it rear-facing on the side (behind the passenger seat).

Now that she's 1 year old and over 20 pounds we can legally install the seat forward-facing, but our pediatrician and others have said that rear-facing is much safer, and that all children should be kept rear-facing as long as possible. What I'm wondering is whether rear-facing is still safer if the seat is next to the car door, rather than forward-facing in the middle of the backseat. Obviously rear-facing AND in the middle would be best, but that's not possible. So which is safer? Thanks.

I posted this in the Allergies section but got no answers there...hoping this board is more active!

I have an infant who just turned one, and she has a latex allergy. She doesn't have spina bifida, but she did have a lot of medical interventions (including an IV, but no surgeries) in her first week of life, which is probably how she was sensitized to latex. I have a latex allergy as well, though I didn't know it until recently. Fortunately she's never had an anaphylactic reaction, but she has had moderate allergic reactions to extremely small exposures to latex - e.g., coughing and repeated diarrhea from just touching the painted design on a shirt (the paint was later confirmed to contain latex), coughing and watering eyes from simply being in an athletic shoe store for less than 2 minutes without touching anything, etc. We've been very careful to keep her away from latex as much as possible, but it's everywhere.

She's seen a good allergist, but no one seems willing to predict how the allergy is likely to manifest itself as she gets older. I'm wondering if anyone else had an infant with a latex allergy, and what happened as the child grew. If you were really careful to avoid exposure, did the allergy go away or become less severe with time? (My daughter had severe allergies to cow's milk and soy previously, too, but she already seems to have mostly outgrown those.) Or did it get progressively worse? I'm really hoping her reaction will lessen once she outgrows the phase of putting everything in her mouth...

I have an infant who just turned one, and she has a latex allergy. She doesn't have spina bifida, but she did have a lot of medical interventions (including an IV, but no surgeries) in her first week of life, which is probably how she was sensitized to latex. I have a latex allergy as well, though I didn't know it until recently. Fortunately she's never had an anaphylactic reaction, but she has had moderate allergic reactions to extremely small exposures to latex - e.g., coughing and repeated diarrhea from just touching the painted design on a shirt (the paint was later confirmed to contain latex), coughing and watering eyes from simply being in an athletic shoe store for less than 2 minutes without touching anything, etc. We've been very careful to keep her away from latex as much as possible, but it's everywhere.

She's seen a good allergist, but no one seems willing to predict how the allergy is likely to manifest itself as she gets older. I'm wondering if anyone else had an infant with a latex allergy, and what happened as the child grew. If you were really careful to avoid exposure, did the allergy go away or become less severe with time? (My daughter had severe allergies to cow's milk and soy previously, too, but she already seems to have mostly outgrown those.) Or did it get progressively worse? I'm really hoping her reaction will lessen once she outgrows the phase of putting everything in her mouth...

My daughter has had food allergies since birth. She could not tolerate breastmilk even once I'd eliminated all of the top 10 allergens from my diet, or Alimentum, or soy formula. When she was 5 months old an allergist finally put her on Neocate, an amino acid formula, and I stopped breastfeeding. She immediately started doing better. Both a pediatric GI specialist and the allergist said that most children grow out of many food allergist fairly quickly, and they said we could slowly try solids. At 6 months we tried a small amount of rice cereal, and she could not tolerate it. She broke out in a rash, fussed for days, and the horrible sleep problems she'd had previously returned. We went back to just Neocate for another two months. She's 8 months old now, and yesterday we tried a few bites of oatmeal, with the same reaction. She also cannot tolerate even just 1 oz. of Alimentum mixed into her regular bottles.

Has anyone else been in this situation? If so, what was the outcome? She's thriving on Neocate, and it's nutritionally complete for babies up to a year old. So solids really aren't necessary at this point, but we're beginning to get seriously worried that she still can't handle even a few bites of baby food. We'll wait a few weeks and try a veggie, but it's hard to see her so miserable for days each time we try a food and she can't digest it. She's also allergic to latex, so fruits and veggies are a bit more risky because some of them cross-react in people with latex allergies.

I know some babies just have more sensitive systems than others, but I really thought she would have outgrown the problem by now. If you had an infant like this, when did they begin to tolerate solids? Thanks.

My daughter is almost 8 months old. Five days ago she got what I thought was just a regular cold. This wasn't surprising, since she'd just started daycare in a program with five other infants. For two days, she was just fussy and had a runny nose. The second night she had a rectal temperature of 100.8, but her temp was back to normal the next morning and has stayed that way since. However, on the third day she developed a cough, and it's now turned into a seal-bark cough. From the cough alone, it sounds like it might be croup. But I know that croup is usually accompanied by a fever, and aside from the one evening of a slightly elevated temperature several days ago, she hasn't had any fever at all. She has not had any stridor or difficulty breathing, aside from the runny nose. Does this sound like the croup, or just a regular cold with an odd cough?

I will call the doctor first thing in the morning, but I'm wondering what to expect. She's eating normally and sleeping okay (not great), but she has had small amounts of diarrhea several times per day, which had given her a painful diaper rash. She's not dehydrated or anything, and I'm not really worried that it's anything serious. I'm mostly just hoping to know what it is so I have some idea how long it's likely to be before she gets better. Thanks!

When I was exclusively breastfeeding, I gave my daughter vitamin D drops. My doctor recommended this because I live in the northern U.S., and the baby doesn't get much sunlight in winter. When we switched to formula for medical reasons, I was told by a different doctor to stop the supplements because the formula already has vitamin D in it. I've also read that too much can be bad.

My daughter is now almost 8 months old and has been on formula for 3 months. She drinks about 30 ounces a day and isn't on solids yet (for medical reasons). She recently had blood tests that showed slightly high calcium levels. Our doctor said to make sure I'm still giving her vitamin D drops, since low vitamin D can affect calcium levels. I know she hasn't forgotten that my baby is on formula now, because we'd just discussed it. I'll clarify when we see her next week, but meanwhile I'm wondering if anyone else was told to give a formula-fed baby vitamin D drops?

My 7-month-old daughter has repeatedly had allergy symptoms immediately after putting latex bottle nipples and toys in her mouth. The symptoms were very vigorous coughing, often retching and vomiting, tons of thick drool out her mouth and nose, stuffy nose, and watery eyes. Her breathing also got a little raspy for a few minutes, though fortunately it improved rapidly. We have seen an allergist, who did a skin prick test and blood tests for a latex allergy. Both came back negative. The allergist said that false negatives aren't unusual for children under 2, and that her symptoms are consistent enough that we should assume for now that she is allergic to latex, and re-test in a year.

What I'm wondering is whether anyone has a young child who did turn out to have a severe allergy despite both negative blood and skin prick tests. Does the fact that her tests were negative make it less likely that she has a severe, life-threatening allergy, even if they are false negatives and she does test positive for a mild/moderate latex allergy when she's older?

My daughter got her first 2 teeth on the bottom when she was 6.5 months old. She's 7 months old now and I think she's about to get more teeth on the bottom. I can't see any yet, but we couldn't see her first teeth until the day they came through, either. She really likes pressure on her bottom gums and is indifferent to pressure on her top ones, etc. The thing is, she doesn't have any top teeth yet. I know those are usually the ones that come in next. Do babies ever get four bottom teeth before getting any top ones?

My daughter is just over 6 months old, and she still clenches her fists about 90% of the time. She only relaxes them when she's eating or in the bath. She does hold onto small toys and cloths, but it's always with tightly curled fingers. I asked our pediatrician about this two months ago and was told it was normal then, even though all the other babies the same age that I observed had loosened up a lot more. A neurologist she saw for something else commented on it a few weeks ago, and he did think it was unusual, and he recommended an Early Intervention evaulation. They did an assessment and said her fine motor skills are about two months behind, though her gross motor skills and all her other skills are on target or ahead. She is currently receiving occupational therapy for high muscle tone.

Did anyone else have a baby who still clenched their fists so much or had high muscle tone at this age? If so, what ended up happening?

My baby is almost 6 months old. She was breastfed until a few weeks ago, but she literally seemed allergic to everything I ate. I elimninated dairy, beef, soy, chicken, fish, nuts, wheat, and eggs, and she was still having a terrible reaction to something I ate. An allergist put her on Neocate, which seemed to solve the problem at first. But after a week the problems started to return (incl. face rash, extreme fussiness, projectile vomiting, coughing and retching immediately after a bottle, etc.). Then we discovered she has a latex allergy to the bottle nipples! Since we switched to silicone, the problem is completely solved.

However, we're now starting to introduce solids. She's only had rice cereal so far, which she tolerates well. But I've read that avocade, banana, and other tropical fruits can cross-react with latex, and that carrots, potatoes, and apples sometimes do too. Has anyone faced this problem? Was your latex-allergic infant able to tolerate those foods? (I was eating lots of carrots, potatoes, and apples while breastfeeding, so that could have explained the continuing problem. And only small amounts pass through breastmilk. Now I'm afraid she'll have a severe reaction if she ingests even a small amount of these foods directly.)

My daughter is almost 6 months old, and we discovered a few weeks ago that she has multiple food allergies and a general problem digesting protein. We now have the allergies under control (we think), and she's much happier overall. Her constant, painful gas is gone. But it's been two weeks, and she still wakes up several times an hour, all night long. It's hard to be sure, but we don't think she's in any pain at this point. She still wakes up thrashing around even if she's right next to me in bed, and she not only thrashes but also screams frantically when I put her in her crib, car seat, swing, or bouncer. She learned how to roll over in swaddling months ago, so that's a safety hazard. We've tried all the sleep training methods that everyone always recommends, and nothing makes a bit of difference. She will literally scream for hours and hours if we try to let her "cry it out", and she's never once fallen asleep by herself, despite weeks of consistently putting her to bed drowsy but awake, etc. If I rock her to sleep, she wakes up screaming after 20-40 minutes. The only way she'll sleep at all is on my chest, but even that's not an option anymore - she's so strong and thrashes so much that she gave me a bloody lip last night. She's on medication for reflux to see if that would help, but it hasn't (we didn't really think she had reflux anyway). Our pediatrician and a neurologist both say it's rough but she should grow out of it soon...but it's been six months and it's getting worse and worse, not better. None of the sleep books even begin to address this extreme of a sleep problem. Has anyone else experienced this, and what ended up finally happening? I love my baby so much, but I'm about to go crazy from sleep deprivation. My family has been helping as much as they can, but they're worn out too. I need to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

My baby was exclusively breastfed for the first 5 months, and she was having increasingly bad allergies to something I ate. I eventually eliminated all dairy, beef, soy, eggs, wheat, and chicken. Things got slightly better with each food I eliminated, but she still woke up screaming several times per hour, all night every night. An allergist finally put her on Neocate, and it helped with the digestive problems right away. However, she's been on it for 10 days and the sleeping is only marginally better. She still has a rash around her mouth, which is slowly getting worse, and she got her first diaper rash ever. At least once a day she coughs and coughs immediately after eating, then throws up a lot (not just normal baby spit up). She's always rubbing her eyes and nose. Could she be allergic to the Neocate? She has not had any solids yet. I see that Neocate is 57% corn syrup solids. Can a baby be allergic to that?

My baby was exclusively breastfed for the first 5 months, and she was having increasingly bad allergies to something I ate. I eventually eliminated all dairy, beef, soy, eggs, wheat, and chicken. Things got slightly better with each food I eliminated, but she still woke up screaming several times per hour, all night every night. An allergist finally put her on Neocate, and it helped with the digestive problems right away. However, she's been on it for 10 days and the sleeping is only marginally better. She still has a rash around her mouth, which is slowly getting worse, and she got her first diaper rash ever. At least once a day she coughs and coughs immediately after eating, then throws up a lot (not just normal baby spit up). She's always rubbing her eyes and nose. Could she be allergic to the Neocate? She has not had any solids yet. I see that Neocate is 57% corn syrup solids. Can a baby be allergic to that?

She was born four weeks early, so her adjusted age is four months. However, she's been meeting all other milestones on schedule for her birth age. She does loosen them in the bath and while nursing, but otherwise they're almost always clenched tight. She does like to hold cloth, but she rarely holds onto hard objects.

My baby was born 4 weeks early and had to be resuscitated at birth. Fortunately, she is a healthy and happy baby who quickly caught up and has been meeting all milestones on target. She slept great (5-6 hours at a stretch) until we had to stop swaddling her for safety reasons when she was 11 weeks old. She learned to roll over in her swaddling and was way too active for any sleep positioner to keep her in place. Since then, she ALWAYS wakes every 40 minutes, day and night. She startles repeatedly and then flails her arms and legs wildly until it wakes her up. With our pediatrician's blessing, we've even tried putting her on her tummy to sleep, and it still happens. She NEVER sleeps more than 40 minutes at a stretch, and she startles and thrashes around so much that she never resettles on her own. The only way she'll sleep longer is if we're holding her and we literally pin her arms and legs down every time she begins thrashing. This has been going on for eight weeks, and we are totally exhausted. She isn't hungry when she wakes. We have a consistent bedtime routine. Her moro reflex is almost gone during the day - she only startles so much when she's tired. She had an EEG and is not having seizures, thankfully. She does not have reflux. The problem is clearly that she startles and thrashes between every sleep cycle. What could be causing this? (Note: Out of desperation, we have tried letting her cry it out. She will scream without stopping for hours on end, and when she finally falls asleep she still wakes after 40 minutes. It happens in the swing and carseat, too.)