Allergies in the early days
When your baby arrives you think of all the lovely days out you can have with them. The people and places you can introduce them to. Then as they got older, toddler groups, parties, clubs and so on. But the way you do things has to change when allergies are involved. And it’s something that’s hard to prepare for.
In the early days Ella could never settle. She’d cry almost constantly and was often covered in rashes and eczema. I could never seem to get her to sleep for more than half an hour, and almost always on me, because she was so uncomfortable. We used to take it in turns rocking her through the night to try and give her some comfort. Nothing seemed to work. We told ourselves there were people dealing with much worse, but at the time with no sleep and no answers, we were left feeling helpless and sad about our baby who seemed in so much pain.
Initially we tried all the tips we read online, from dummies to sleeping bags, baby massage to slings, and then introduced medicines like Infacol, gripe water and reflux medication. People tell you that maybe she’s just a hard baby, after all –some babies don’t sleep, just let her cry until she settles. We gave it days and weeks trying everything until we were at breaking point, and back to the GP we went (this time in tears). It was then we finally got a referral to a pediatric allergy consultant – which felt like a huge relief.
GP referrals generally don’t come through quickly, and it can seem to take forever to get some proper answers. But when you talk to someone who just understands, and who knows why your baby is behaving how she is, it feels absolutely huge. You realise you weren’t losing your mind due to sleep deprivation and they weren’t just a ‘hard baby’. They were unwell and in pain because their body was reacting to food they were getting either through your milk, formula or weaning.
This news was actually a relief for me. However, cutting out dairy in my diet for feeding her was harder than I thought (I love cheese and chocolate!). We soon started to see a difference in her in just a few weeks. The allergy life and adapting started here for Ella.
Babies are hard to diagnose as there are lots of other things like reflux and constipation that can show similar symptoms to allergies. But if you know something isn’t right with your baby, keep pushing for answers. The sooner you get them checked out the better for the baby and your mental health.
