Since we are heading out of the country, I wanted to try a bunch of new foods before we left, to maximize the options for P.
As you can probably imagine, I’m not really keen on the idea of trying various foods for the first time while we are oceans apart from our MD (and the coverage of health care). I am bringing 3 epi-pens with me and I’d like to return with the same amount. Benadryl can fill in the gaps if there’s cross contamination, but for the 2 weeks we are gone, I’m not going to press our luck with expanding his palate.
In the past week he’s tried strawberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, tomatoes, and chia seeds.
I know SEEDS! I was seriously nervous feeding him chia seeds because we had been advised to avoid all nuts and seeds until he was 2 years old and was able to get re-tested. I did a TON of research but couldn’t find a single scientific study or article that concluded anything about the cross reactivity of chia, flax, and/or pumpkin seeds amongst people with sesame allergies. This is something that is likely due to the recent increase in prevalence, so I’m still hoping there will eventually be more information over the course of P’s childhood. The reason I wanted to clear these in particular, though, was because several of the puree pouches that I was looking at had salba chia seeds in them. I could have avoided those specific flavors, but the rest of the ingredients looked so nutritious and delicious and I wanted to have as diverse a range of options for him as possible away from home.
Anyway, I mixed a teaspoon of chia seeds into his oats with cinnamon and mashed up banana. And I gave him a few bites. He loved it and would have eaten a lot more, but I thought it best to go slow. After he ate, I watched him carefully for a while – no rash, no hives, no labored breathing, no wheezing. No change in demeanor whatsoever. Sigh of relief. I put him down for a nap a while later and even though I have a video monitor, I still put my ear to the door to listen for breathing a few times. I realize I sound like a nutcase, but he’s my little everything and I don’t usually go against the MD’s advice. I have since given him chia seeds several times without any reaction. Hooray! The pouches now have the green light. Hopefully he won’t turn up his nose at every single one of them.
Strawberries and pineapple were less of a concern for me, since those seem to be more of an acidic issue than allergy thing. He did get a little redness on his chin the first time he tried both of them, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. Incidentally, both the strawberries and pineapple were a huge hit the first time, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with them the second time I offered them to him. Weird kid. I have since tried both a few more times without any luck in the strawberries. Pineapple he refused a few times but then finally gave in…and inhaled them, so much so that he broke out in hives all over his hand and arms (due to excessive contact with the acidic fruit). It freaked me out at first because the rash was bright red and raised, plus he was clearly bothered by it, scratching himself where the skin was inflamed. But there weren’t hives anywhere else and as soon as I washed off his skin it went away. I believe it’s purely contact dermatitis* given how quickly it resolved, but I’m hesitant to push pineapple (and any other citrus) much more. For now, I don’t care if he eats these acidic fruits or not (they won’t go to waste on my watch!) but at least I know he doesn’t have an anaphylactic response when he ingests them.
He hardly ate the oranges and tomatoes I offered him, even though the tomatoes were cooked into his scrambled eggs, so I can’t be sure about his skin’s reaction to the acid, but he got enough to clear him from having an allergic reaction. I may try tomato sauce on some gluten free pasta next to see if that’s something he likes or not. Marinara could open a whole world of meals for us (him), although I will still have to be hyper-vigilent about any added ingredients because I think gluten can get hidden in there sometimes. Maybe even nuts and/or seeds, too.
*ETA: He got the same hives (in the same location) after another meal that didn’t include pineapple, so I’m not sure what caused it but we now have more trial and error planned for the next few meals. I need to buy stock in Benadryl.
Next up? Beets, kiwi, and maybe (but probably not quite yet) flax?
Look at all these happy baby products! I bought tons of flavors from a few different lines, including the starting solids (1), simple combos (2), homestyle meals (2), and hearty meals (3).
FYI, I emailed the company about what’s in the chicken stock just to be sure. I have yet to hear back, but I’ll update once I do.
From the company “We use several different facilities for our products – most do not use peanuts, tree nuts or sesame, but a few do. Our Super Toddler bars are produced in a facility with peanuts and tree nuts present, and our Munchies Rice Cakes are produced in a facility with sesame present. Otherwise, the only tree nut used with shared equipment in our pouch production facilities is coconut. Our chicken stock is made from chicken and water, there are no additional ingredients.”
Hey Elise, where are you going? Are you still working? Just curious how you handle everything!!!!
Food allergies and reactions can be so strange. Before my guy was a year he’d get red cheeks when eating strawberries. Now at 17 months he’s fine and he ate a clementine and strawberries for breakfast. Hopefully, P will grow out of a lot, if not all, of his allergies and reactions.
YAAAAY! I’m so glad the chia seeds were a hit & he was able to enjoy them! 😀 The things mom’s get excited over 😉 The first day I put mushrooms in Drake’s egg & he ate them right up I think I did the happy dance haha…
Make sure that TSA will allow the fruits on the plane. I know peanut butter, yogurt, cream cheese in tubes are taken away.
Sounds like he has a sensitivity to foods high in histamine
Maybe allergic to dust/some environmental allerhen to explain the incident when he randomly got the hives
Hey Beth. I don’t think it’s best for our privacy/safety to discuss travel specifics.
Could be. It was only on his arms where he touched the food repetitively as it was on his tray (his arms must have been sitting in it for the repeated exposure because his mouth wasn’t nearly as reactive – just a little red but no hives). I’m pretty sure I know what it was now.
Something interesting about kiwis…….I was at my daughter’s school volunteering last week and they had a list of all the kids in the school with life threatening allergies. There were peanut, tree nuts and a few shellfish and sesame and one dairy…..but I was shocking how many of the kids had severe allergies to kiwi. All of them were kids that had allergies to either tree nuts, peanuts or shellfish as well. I’m not saying it to scare you but just to be careful as it seems like P has allergies already and might want to be extra careful when you give him a higher allergy risk food.
A lot of children that have food allergies do great eating hemp seed butter.
Hey stacy. Thanks for the idea. I’m not sure how you came to it but i try not to draw conclusions too often because babies have reactions ALLLLL the time. Their skin is super sensitive and sometimes it is completely random. I have talked to tons of other moms and they all have various stories that validate this and none of their kids have allergies or sensitivities otherwise. It can be pretty frustrating to try to always put a label on it, so i don’t. It’s just something that you learn to not freak out about since it’s short lived and not serious (like his true food allergies). As it turns out the reaction was from a bad piece of chicken.
Thanks stella! Thats really good to know. I appreciate the heads up and may hold off in introducing that until we are back home.
Funny, you post all the mundane details of your life but…for your privacy and safety don’t post your trip. Interesting that you don’t care about your privacy in all other regards…makes sense.
Hi Mary Beth. Knowing what I eat is very different from knowing my location and whereabouts. If you find my life mundane you can certainly stop reading about it.
Hi Elise! I’ve been following your blog for a while now and love all your recipes! Our palates are quite similar so I come to your blog anytime I am hungry and can find exactly what I want to eat!
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I appreciate you dedicating part of your blog to share your recipes and success/failures with your child and his allergies. I just recently found out that my 7 month old is allergic to eggs and nuts; he was also diagnosed with FPIES. This isn’t affecting his diet as much as mine right now since he’s almost exclusively breastfed. It’s been so hard to adjust to not eating nuts, I’m a nut butter fanatic!
My little one has terrible eczema, and that is what prompted me to get him tested. Did P have trouble with eczema as well?
You are so smart testing new foods before traveling! I watch a baby boy, and when his family went away for Christmas, they could only get him to eat cereal and bananas the entire time!
Between the addition of meat to your recipes, ridiculous amounts of info on baby allergies/reactions/etc, baby info in general, and now a weird narcissistic paranoia with regards to sharing even the most general travel info with people who are here to read recipes (why even say anything if you aren’t going to share further?), I will end my following of this blog. It was fun while it lasted. Just my two cents, since you seem to write this as at least a partial job and probably make some income from it.
Lol… Wow people, lighten up. She can choose what she wants to share or not. It’s her blog and her life. It’s not some reality show or petri dish to analyze. I applaud Elise for making the necessary changes to her life in order to better her health and her family’s wellbeing. Takes a lot of courage to do so, in addition to coming out about it on the Internet. Life is an ever evolving thing… If u stay stuck, close minded, and dogmatic, well, that’s your loss. And if that’s how u view life, then it’s best u u subscribe from her blog and leave her be and stop hassling her. No one deserves that type of criticism. Get a different hobby, k? 🙂 and if u kept up with her blogs, I’m sure u can deduce where she might be going on vacation. But either way, let her have her privacy as she sees fit and let her choose what she wants to divuldge. Sheesh
Keep up the entertaining blogs, Elise. I enjoy reading them and have learned a lot from you. Have fun on ur Vacay too!
This has got to be the most incoherent and nonsensical response I’ve ever read. There was absolutely zero malice behind my comment; I was merely sharing with the author the reasons I removed this blog from my blogger reading list. I write a blog and would be interested to know the reasons a follower might cancel their subscription. Most bloggers who have brains know that what they write is open to comments and criticism 24/7/365 and typically welcome feedback, both positive and negative, as a way to grow as a writer/blogger.
In the years I’ve followed this blog I’ve commented approximately 2 times including today’s comment. I’d hardly call that “hassling.” I don’t really care where the author is traveling to, but find it odd that she chooses to dangle this tidbit to her readers and then cite “safety concerns” when asked where she’s headed. It’s just plain weird, especially to someone who writes a travel blog.
“If u stay stuck, close minded, and dogmatic, well, that’s your loss.” Really? I fail to see how continuing to read weekly posts about a baby’s reaction to every food on the planet is beneficial to me, a young woman who cannot have children. (And, before you verbally maul me again, yes, I plan to adopt one day down the road, but that’s a long way off and not relevant to me at the current time.)
Thanks, though, for your lovely chauvinistic comment. Nice to see the true colors of some of the readers here.
I know it’s not the same thing, because I don’t have food allergies, but for a long LONG time I couldn’t eat strawberries or avocados. I grew up in NY and then lived in MA until I was 32, and never could I eat those two fruits without serious gut problems, and sometimes what I could describe as “irritated” lips.
Someone pointed out to me that strawberries have exposed flesh, no skin, and avocados are prone to puncture, so it could be the retardants & pesticides used on the fruits for shipping such a long distance were what I was reacting to, not the fruits itself. I switched to organic strawberries (which I was able to get locally) and cut avocados completely from my diet until I moved here, and that seemed to help. This was also my first taste of WHY I should be buying local organic…
Living in CA and being who you are, you’re probably already getting organic local produce, but it may be something similar. Who knows what could be in the air, settling on the fruits. Cross contamination from other nearby crops, open air markets… who knows! But hey! Who needs an excuse to go on a strawberry picking trip?!!
Ridiculous. Elise, I hope you are ignoring this crap.
Yes, me too! Since that last response wasn’t directed at her.
It makes me sad to read this. I fail to see how there was no malice behind your previous post, anyone reading it would see that it would have hurt the feelings of the author. She has freely acknowledged that the blog has changed in direction in the past couple of months and there is no problem with that, it’s her blog. It may not resonate with you anymore and that is fine but there are plenty of people out there who find this information essential, including the details. If you want to provide feedback that’s fine but instead of being critical how about saying thanks for all the posts you have enjoyed in the past!?
Im really pleased he can have chia! That opens up lots of possibilities for you. Those pouches are just fantastic, amd in recent years they have really improved the ingredients. Hopefully he will like them, but If he is hungry enough he will eat them! 🙂
Strange how this post stirred up some not constructive and just weird comments…..
And obviously your family’s privacy is sacred.
Anyways, that’s so great P can have chia! Omg- he could have those banana coconut milk chia pods i am so obsessed with…..! (These: http://www.thechiaco.com.au/product/podbana06ozcp)
It sounds like you have a great strategy for traveling-which sounds potentially stressful…..
Wow….I am a little disturb and baffled. People write blogs and choose what information they want to reveal. Readers chose blogs based on their interest and what is going on in their own lives. Blogs are not stagnant. Peoples lives change and so will their blogs. If you do not like the direction a blog is going find another. Thank you Elsie for introducing me to different foods and how to incorporate them in my life. I have a grandchild one month older than P so I like reading what you are feeding P .
Yep, it’s her blog and this comment section is a public forum. I admit my opinion is an honest and un-sugar-coated one. I did not berate the author; if you believe otherwise I urge you to consider the possibility that you could be misinterpreting my tone. Even if I’d offered thanks along with my reasons for leaving I’d still have to deal with the likes of those of you who feel it necessary to carry on like this. It would be impossible for me to even put a frowny face in a comment on this site without being trampled all over. I’ll be moving along now, so no need for anymore nasty remarks, please and thank you. And my apologies to the author for this nonsense.
Sorry to read the negative comments Elsie :(. Although your blog doesn’t directly effect me (I have no baby etc.) I still enjoy reading!! I think P is so cute and I generally find your blog interesting!
Exactly. I don’t read this as much since the baby allergy posts started, but not because I”m upset about that, I just don’t have any children. I appreciate Elise sharing her journey with the public, but I realize I don’t have as much in common, so instead of getting angry about it, I simply don’t read as often. But its still a great blog and who cares if she shares her travel info or not? Its really not that important. Keep it up, Elise! And enjoy your trip, wherever you go!
Who would have thought that this particular blog would create such a commotion. Gee people, back off!
Gosh Elise, I joked last year about ‘popping in’ to see you, I hope I didn’t creep you out? I was being humerous I promise !
Have a wonderful trip, and your blog is as interesting as ever 🙂
Cheers to P
Lori 🙂
Great the chia worked out! Before learning P was allergic to sesame, is there any reason you hadn’t tried flax yet? I’m just curious as I have a very adventurous almost 8 month old who is starting to at least try most of what we eat and sometimes I bake with flax.
We’ve had success with berries, although one time he bathed in them he got a little redness on his chin. Hard to tell sometimes since he’s constantly teething (8 teeth and counting) what redness is what. I’m still waiting on the peanut butter, since we were on vacation I didn’t want to chance it before or during, but I have tried your inner arm suggestion and my son didn’t have any reaction to that 🙂
I like hearing about your life and what you feed P. I’m always looking for ideas!
I dont get these comments. You say its the bloggers right to say what she wants but get angry at a comment that does the same? You tell the commenter to go elsewhere. Did you read that comment? Thats exactly what the commenter said they were doing.
It doesn’t look like she works anymore.
The baby stuff is so b o r i n g. I don’t read very often anymore either.
If you want a more interesting blog, Elise tell us more about California, what you’re up to (aside from baby stuff- anything else going on?), future hopes/ dreams?? Again, do not be offended. If you don’t want an interesting blog, don’t listen to me 🙂
An outstanding share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague
who has been conducting a little homework on this.
And he in fact ordered me lunch because I discovered it for him…
lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending the time to talk about this matter here on your site.
This website certainly has all the information I
wanted concerning this subject and didn’t know
who to ask.
Hey Elise – can’t believe all this time has flown by and Patrick is one?! Aah! Was wondering – how did you find out he has a nut allergy?
Hi to Kyle – and safe travels to wherever you are going. If you’re coming my way let me know!!
Gauri
I love reading about your baby, and your allergy posts. I suppose for me, your interests coincide with mine quite a bit since we both have allergic children and intend to keep them healthy and avoid potentially life threatening allergens. I only wish I could bring some wonderful suggestions to the table, too!
Good day! I know this is kind of off topic but I
was wondering if you knew where I could locate
a captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having difficulty
finding one? Thanks a lot!
hey gauri! if we were coming your way we would definitely make sure you knew 🙂
p had an anaphylactic reaction after i fed him peanut butter (followed by a 911 call, epinephrine, steroids, benadryl, hospital stay, etc). we have no history of allergies so we got the go ahead from the pediatrician at our 9 mo appt. obviously it didn’t go well 🙁
after that we had blood work done to test the rest of the allergens (he hadnt yet had gluten/wheat, tree nuts, etc.) which is how we found out about the rest.
how are solids going for pia? hope you guys are well. xxx
Do you think the bread “Happy Baby” is the best for snack foods/purees? Our target just started carrying them & I remembered you doing a post of them so I thought I’d ask. I wish he would just eat my foods, however he can be a little stinker & only want puffs haha
Omg Elise, that is horribly scary. I’m sorry you had to go through that. Pia has been fine so far with solids – she is now eating everything we are eating and I have given her nut butters in small amounts with no reaction. I will follow along to keep updated on you three :). Happy, safe travels.
There is no shame in being a stay at home mom. Just be honest about it so that other women don’t wonder how they too can be a super mom/wife/employee and still cook and take vacations all the time.
Hi Beth,
I’m not ignoring you out of shame, I already discussed it on the blog.
sorry…I read all your blog posts and don’t remember you commenting on quitting your job, if you have quit.
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