Creamed Wheat

We completely PASSED WHEAT! For breakfast, Claire has been eating banana muffins that I concocted with whole wheat flour, extra bananas in place of eggs and applesauce instead of butter. She gobbles up the gooey-ness :)   I can hardly wait to pull out my waffle iron... What's more, in just about a month,  she's going to dig into her very own smash cake at her first birthday party.  Watching Claire eat her cake will mean so much more than cake-in-the-face entertainment...

I can't believe how well her body has responded to everything I've spooned into her mouth over the last four months.  I'm hoping that the same goes for what I'm about to put into her bottle... Milk. Real cow's milk.

I've been thinking a lot about weaning Claire and it's just about time for us both.  She hasn't had a drop of anything but the good stuff since her reaction to regular formula in November.  So, I mixed up a bottle of uber-safe formula, Alimentum, last week to give it a shot.  Based on the fact that she nearly gagged and then threw her bottle, I think her answer is a resounding, "Hell no!".   I started to panic a bit, since that was my only known back up plan.  Then I talked to my pediatrician who told me to go ahead and try cow's milk.  We discussed a plan to start small and rapidly increase the serving size each day.  By the end of a week, she should be taking three six-ounce servings.  I'm a little in shock and a lot relieved.  Both our pediatrician and allergist agree that Claire should outgrow her intolerance to cow's milk protein (she has an intolerance, NOT FPIES to milk) between 12 and 18 months.  Apparently, we're close enough :)

We have a hefty trip to California planned during the better part of July, so, in order to give us plenty of time to trial while in close proximity to our physicians, we're going to be starting milk in the next week.  As far as I'm aware, the worst that could happen is she's developed an allergy to milk (although all of her previous skin prick tests would say otherwise).  If her intolerance remains, we'll deal with an upset GI system and more blood in the stools, but nothing that would land us in the ER.  If she passes her dairy challenge, she'll be indulging in nutritious and delicious big-kid foods in no time.

We've nailed 17 fruits and vegetables, we've proven corn is no match for us, and we've creamed wheat... Watch out milk, you've got another thing coming...