Nutrition

What is cow’s milk protein allergy?

Approximately 3-4% of children are diagnosed with cows’ milk protein allergy in the UK.  

In these children, their immune system reacts to the proteins found in cow’s milk and dairy products.

Although there are two types of dairy allergy (one being immediate and the other delayed or non-IgE mediated), in both scenarios your paediatrician and paediatric dietitian will recommend a dairy free diet.

Most babies will also be prescribed a specialist infant formula.

If you are breastfeeding then you will be recommended to follow a dairy free diet.

There is considerable debate about whether cow’s milk proteins from a mother’s diet crosses over to breast milk.

If your baby has been diagnosed with cow’s milk protein allergy despite breastfeeding, then both you and your baby will be recommended to follow a strict dairy free diet.

Plan your family friendly meal before grocery shopping

What I always recommend is that the reason it’s so confusing or it’s hard to put good recipes together, is when you buy ingredients and then have to think about a recipe versus thinking of your menu plan.

And then you can buy ingredients for your plan.

So it’s almost like if you start with a few recipes in mind, then you can allocate those ingredients to a recipe so you know exactly what you’re going to do.

For successful family menu planning, instead of buying your usual ingredients and then figuring out what to do with them and because we’re so tired and we have this decision overwhelm often at the end of the day.

It is the toughest part of the day for all of us. It is 100 times harder to then make better decisions and better choices or

How to give bread to a 6 month old baby

You might worry that bread can be a choking hazard for babies starting solids for the first time.

For this reason, when you start giving baby bread, break it up into smaller pieces or toast it and then cut into thin finger-shaped slices.

Bread only poses as a choking hazard if the piece of bread is too large, starts sticking to your baby’s mouth or your baby is unable to confidently mash it into small pieces before attempting to swallow it.

As a rule of thumb, when bread is first offered, the pieces should be small enough for your baby to pick up using their fingers.

Another option is to toast the piece of bread and slice it lengthwise into long slender pieces.

This way your baby can enjoy it like a teething snack and gnaw at it or slowly

Wendy Griffith is a certified health & wellness coach, who helps busy career mums thrive with the juggle of mum life through building sustainable health habits.  Her health and lifestyle coaching addresses; stress, nutrition, exercise, time management and sleep, where it’s her mission to help career mums build healthier habits, which serve the unique life of each mum. 

I invited Wendy to join us on Kids Nutrition Podcast as I knew she helped busy mums juggle the everyday life of motherhood whilst also supporting them to build healthy habits that stick.

In out interview we discuss:

• what busy mums typically struggle with and why
• what are some of the best ways to set personal nutrition goals for adults?
• How to navigate menu planning with ease
• Tips for managing special diets such as dairy free diets as a family
• The good, the bad and the ugly about setting healthy habits and