What do you substitute for milk?

We are milk allergy here. Sam hated the taste of soy milk with a passion. So, what I did was find a soy juice called "So Natural" (I think) that was part soy milk/part juice. Gave him that straight and then slowly started putting more soy milk in there until it was mostly soy.

I have a friend whose children do not drink any form of milk and their doc says it is okay. Make sure he is getting calcium (broccoli is a good source) and lots of water and you'll be ok.

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Mine get watered down juice at breakfast and water the rest of the day. They eat yogurt and cheese without problems and get plenty of calcium from those and a multivitamin at breakfast.

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How about goat's milk? My son loves it and they need less because it's higher in most nutrients and is usually 14-17% fat. It also doesn't need to be certified organic (if you're an organic mama, which I think you are) because goats don't get the hormones etc that cows do.

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If he can have yogurt and cheese without a problem, it's lactose and not cascien (the protein found in all dairy). This is a good thing.

Try small amounts of the lactose free milk and see how that goes. We use it at my house and the kids drink it up.

But if you're worried about calcium, yogurt and cheese should suffice.

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My son is allergic to cow's milk and egg. We have him on soy milk, which he loves. I'm surprised others haven't had luck with it, cause soy milk, unlike cow's mile, has sugar added. I drink it myself sometimes. It's sweet.

I also give him calcium fortified OJ.

As for soy yoghurt, the nutritional content is really poor. I don't recommend it. I do like Nayonaise, which is soy based Mayonaise, nutritionally and taste-wise.

With respect to calcium fortified soy milk and OJ, I read in Parents magazine recently that the calcium absorption rate is only 45%. The article was about how ERs are seeing more and more toddlers with broken bones due to calcium deficiency. What I got from the article is that the bottom line is that there's not much we (parents of allergy boys) can do (because the efficacy of the fortified products is limited), and that our kids are at high risk for bone density issues. Sorry!

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I give my son Lactaid. He has had issues since the day he was born. Naturally when I stopped his formula his little belly didn't handle cow's milk very well. Lactaid has been a lifesaver.

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Cass drank goat's milk for awhile, but still had mild allergic reactions and skin rashes. Then, we switched to Silk brand soy but she didn't have a taste for it until she tried chocolate. I would rather not have gone the chocolate flavor route, but her skin cleared so well that Silk chocolate is our regular drink of choice.

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If he's able to breastfeed, it's not a lactose intolerance. ALL mammals are intolerant of lactose when weaned, and breastmilk is full of the stuff. Instead, it is a specific intolerance to casein or whey found in dairy.

Dairy is actually a pretty poor source of calcium for humans. I have a list of links on other calcium sources right here:

http://conuly.livejournal.com/1007080.html

I would suggest, for the juice, that you start watering it down more and more until he's drinking straight water again.

You might also be concerned about his fat intake - children do need a lot of fat for healthy brain development, and most people use milk for that effect. Instead, I would give him a lot of foods with olive oil added, I would add ground flax seeds (the same sort of stuff that's in fish oil that's good for you!) to his oatmeal or baked goods, I would feed him a lot of guacamole and eat a lot of bananas. Good sources of fat for him and you :)

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Water and moderation with calcium fortified juice would be the way I'd go. I don't know what you'd call what I have, but I can't consume milk (along with a few other foods) because the smell makes me vomit. When I was a kid, I always had water and a vitamin. I don't think I had any substitutes, and as far as I can tell, it didn't hurt my growth or teeth (no cavities yet).

My son would drink juice and milk all day if I let him, and while I've never had a cavity, can't say the same for my husband. What we ended up doing was allowing non water drinks only at mealtimes, because we brush our son's teeth after we're done eating to avoid cavities. It's probably a little overboard, but I've been having a hard time finding a peds dentist on our insurance plan who doesn't sedate preschool and under for checkups.

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Oh, caitlin, no. If you give your son something mildly acidic like juice (or very acidic like soda) and then brush his teeth straight after, you're just eroding the teeth faster.

What you should do after drinking juice or soda or something like that is rinse your mouth with water, and then wait half an hour or so before brushing. Seriously.

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Maybe try goat's milk? My mother told me she couldn't drink cow's milk as a young child, in the days long before anyone had heard of soy, rice, and almond milk, so her farmer parents bought themselves a goat and the problem was solved. Apparently, many people with cow milk sensitivies can drink goat milk without problems.

Thankfully, you don't need to go buy a goat these days! I've seen it on supermarket shelves, especially in grocery stores catering to a more ethnic population.

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We are a rice milk family. He did not do so hot with soy milk so we had to go this route. He is also allergic to wheat so we have lots of substitutions around our house.

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they have this new milk called lactose free you can buy at the store for cheap We had to learn the hard way a few months back the doctors keep saying a stomach flu but I started to get alarmed when my daughter was the only one at school getting the flu.
found out she's allergic to milk and certain things.
We tried the lactose free milk but expensive and she now drinks soy milk 8th content

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I try lots of different tricks to get my son to drink his water. He never refuses it, but he doesn't usually guzzle it like he would if it was chocolate milk or apple juice. Adding a few drops of lemon juice to his sippy cup is fun and it doesn't add much sugar. Also, floating cucumbers is kind of fun. I also take some of those little iced tea packets and pour a few granules in. Just enough to change the color slightly and add a bit of flavor. But our standby is ice water. He loves to have ice cubes in his sippy cup that he can shake around, and he likes the ultra-cold feel in his mouth.

Cheryl at http://redpens-diapers.blogspot.com

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My daughter has a milk allergy. You should really be working with an allergist to see exactly what he is allergic to, whether it is the milk proteins (meaning he should not have any products containing dairy) or lactose, which is an intolerance. If it is a true milk allergy, he can outgrow it, but it means keeping him completely dairy free for a specified amount of time, our doctor told us two years, but any dairy in that time can interfere with our plan.
Anyway, we drink soymilk around here, and what i do is get the vanilla or chocolate one, they both contain the same amount of sugar, and also buy the unsweetened chocolate and vanilla soymilk. (the unsweetened ones are usually the boxed ones on the shelf, not in the refridgerated section) I mix half the sweet one with half unsweetened, so she drinks her milk, happily, but I at least cut the sugar down. I even buy soy smoothies and mix them with unsweetened vanilla soy.

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If you're looking for calcium, don't forget food! Broccoli and dark-green veggies are great for this (spinach, kale, etc). If he doesn't like them straight, you can grind them up and stick them in foods that he likes, like spaghetti sauce or pizza, or if you're REALLY adventurous, puree it and make a veggie juice out of it.

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My son doesn`t have any problems drinking milk, or any of the follow-up formulas for older children... So I can`t help you on that end, but I can suggest some alternatives to juice.

My son loves barley tea (mugicha). It`s tea made from, well, roasted barley. He used to hate it - he insisted on juice or milk - but then I started mixing it into his juice, and slowly reducing the juice. After a couple of weeks he was drinking just the tea. It has a natural sweetness, and no bitterness.
In the hot summer, when he needs a drink constantly (and he will not drink plain water, tried the same thing with water and juice - didn`t work.) I can have it available for him to drink all day without having to worry about cavities. It also has a lot of vitamins and minerals.

Plus, after getting used to it, it`s incredibly refreshing. No juice makes me feel as hydrated as a big glass of the tea!

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My DS has a milk protein allergy and milk avoidance has been a relative non-issue (except when he sees his brother or dad have cheese or yogurt) He mostly drinks water, likes a smoothie in the morning made with juice and a rice protein powder. He occasionally like Rice Dream and especially Rice Dream drink boxes. The hardest part is adjusting family recipes and planning meals aronud it so he is eating the same thing as everyone else. As the rest of the family (plus DS) also is sensitive to soy, we don't sub with that very often. We bought some rice yogurt which is relatively pleasant tasting, but doesn't have the creaminess of regular.

And goat's milk affects him too. Poor guy gets eczema and stomach cramps and general misery when he has dairy of any sort. It does make it easier to avoid it knowing that the turmoil will follow very shortly after.

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Uly, we know. He only gets one glass of juice/milk per meal (otherwise he'd cheerfully drink half a gallon) and water for the rest. Getting him fed is about 45 - 60 minutes, and I do my dishes before we go upstairs to worry about diaper changes and brushing teeth. If we start lunch at noon, we're brushing teeth no earlier than 1:15, usually closer to 2pm, and he usually takes 10 minutes to drink his non water drink.

I just meant that we don't start any major activities that take so long that he'd be stuck eating his next meal with his mouth tasting like toothpaste.

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Okay! I just do know some people who think the way to deal with that sort of thing is to brushbrushbrush their teeth... and I hate to think of people doing just the opposite of what they want to do, especially when it comes to *teeth*.

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