I suspect that my daughter may be allergic to something in my diet. So I'm trying an elimination diet to see if I can isolate the cause. The only problem is that the elimination diet that I found includes lamb and turkey. Are there any non-allergenic vegetarian protein sources that I could substitute instead?

What symptoms is your little girl having?

Don't red kidney beans, or pinto beans have a lot of protein??

I don't know about soy... I mean this is just my experience, but I had a gall bladder attack and had to get morphine at the hospital for the pain, well I couldn't breastfeed for several hours so we gave Katherine formula, she was constipated and screaming for FOUR DAYS (When she was normally having a bowel movement 2-3 times per day, and she hardly ever screams.) And when it came out, it was terrible, all thick sludgey and terrible smelling. We don't know whether it was the soy in the formula or not, but we are NEVER using formula again. EVER. It was so terrible my husband and I cried along with the baby. And the doctors wouldn't do anything because they were like "Four days is not really considered constipation, call us if she goes more than 10 days." Yeah right WHATEVER! OK, had to get that off my chest. :D Anyway she was back to normal after getting all that yucky stuff out of her system. it makes me wonder if she is allergic to something in the formula, like the soy, or what. But we are not going to bother experimenting to find out... I can't stand to see her in pain like that. :(

Lots of fussiness and crying.

Unfortunately, soy and legumes are not able to be included in the diet. It's pretty limited. Oh well, I probably won't starve to death in two weeks time and it would sure be nice to know if she has an allergy or not! (We suspected allergies because I have a strong family history of them and a ton of them myself)

Ruth, does the diet let you eat quinoa at the beginning (or at least not explicitly forbid it)? I've never heard of that being an allergen, and it's got 20g of protein per cup. It'd be pretty boring to eat it 3X/day for 2 weeks, but maybe you can do a couple cups of brown rice for one meal a day (not nearly as much protein, but some).

I know I'm going to have to be careful what I eat when Baby is born. I've got sensitivities to dairy, soy, and eggs. I hope s/he inherits Jerry's ability to eat just about anything :wink: (although he's part of the 75% of the world that's lactose intolerant, and the only dairy he enjoys is cheese and frozen yogurt).

I'm praying that if Hannah does have an allergy, you figure it out quickly. :)

Thanks for the good suggestion, Emily. I had quinoa for supper.

Well, I think that I caught the culprit. I went on a very plain, boring, limited and imbalanced diet for nearly 4 days and ate absolutely nothing that she could be allergic to. She was calm and happy during those days.

Then I decided to have pizza. She screamed and cried on and off for 5-6 hours. One time during that time, she passed probably 4 bowel movements in the space of a half hour. They were just ripping through her system. My nerves were very ragged. Finally, at 3:30 in the morning, I had to leave her in the bed with my husband and go sleep elsewhere so that I could get some sleep. I felt terrible for leaving her in there, but there was absolutely nothing that I could do to help calm her down and an insane momma isn't much good for anyone.

So I'm pretty sure that she's allergic to dairy products. That cheese from the pizza probably really got to her. So from here on out, no dairy products for me. If she stays calm I'll know that that was the culprit. If not, then I will look elsewhere. However, that is the most likely thing.

Well, I think that I caught the culprit. I went on a very plain, boring, limited and imbalanced diet for nearly 4 days and ate absolutely nothing that she could be allergic to. She was calm and happy during those days.

Then I decided to have pizza. She screamed and cried on and off for 5-6 hours. One time during that time, she passed probably 4 bowel movements in the space of a half hour. They were just ripping through her system. My nerves were very ragged. Finally, at 3:30 in the morning, I had to leave her in the bed with my husband and go sleep elsewhere so that I could get some sleep. I felt terrible for leaving her in there, but there was absolutely nothing that I could do to help calm her down and an insane momma isn't much good for anyone.

So I'm pretty sure that she's allergic to dairy products. That cheese from the pizza probably really got to her. So from here on out, no dairy products for me. If she stays calm I'll know that that was the culprit. If not, then I will look elsewhere. However, that is the most likely thing.

Could also be the seasonings or tomato sauce OR the bread, if it had wheat in it....

My little one got really bad gas from spicy tomato products. I'm a fire eater. I ate chili once when she was 2 1/2 months - bad news! she cried and cried with gas. So I ate pretty blandly for awhile. She is not allergic to it though, she does fine now, so I eat whatever I want. It DOES gives her gas, but it doesn't seem to bother her anymore, although it is stinky sometimes! LOL She just has gas a lot, but no pain/crying.

Tomatoes can be very acidic and that can be bothersome to little tummies too.

Since she wasn't allergic, I figure it was just her digestive system was immature - she does fine with tomato and spices now. Even my fire-alarm chili or curried chicken and rice. The doctor said if it just gives them gas it is less likely to be allergies - allergies will often have blood in the stool... if you have a stool from when she had an attack maybe you could get it tested for blood?

Sometimes they just aren't mature enough to digest certain stuff, even when it's in breastmilk. Hope this helps.

Nichole