Navigating the Allergy Maze: Our Early Struggles introducing foods

Finding the right formula was tricky, but the real challenges began when we started introducing solid foods. With our oldest, it was fun and exciting to let him eat solid foods, but with Theodore, it was scary and brought a lot of anxiety.

After his blood work, we were told to avoid peanuts, milk, wheat, bananas, and venison. We didn’t know much about allergy testing at the time, so we did our best with what we knew and completely restricted these ingredients. We also suspected he could be allergic to soy due to the improvement we saw once we switched to a soy-free formula.

Luckily, with baby food purees, the ingredients were fairly simple. But trying to buy any biscuits, puffs, cereal, etc., was a big challenge. This is when I really got a taste of what our lives would now be—reading and triple-checking labels and ingredients of everything.

After introducing many foods, we found that Theodore would still break out in rashes randomly, and his face would occasionally flare up with eczema. We didn’t know what to do and tried our best to mentally track exactly what he ate, hoping to identify what might be causing these random flare-ups.

One day, I received a picture of Theodore at daycare, breaking out in hives. We re-read labels to see if we missed anything, but everything he ate that day was safe. The very next day, he broke out in more hives again. After triple-checking and comparing what he ate on both days, we narrowed it down to pea protein from a squeeze pouch. He was so limited in his food options that I wanted to ensure he got some protein, so I bought veggie pouches with added protein. After some research and a call to his allergist, we learned that soy and peanuts are in the legume family, just like peas, so it is not uncommon for a child with peanut or soy allergies to be allergic to all legumes.

So, we added peas and all legumes to his already overwhelming list of allergies.

One morning, my husband made us all breakfast, and the kids ate some eggs. Soon after, we noticed that Theo had many hives on his face—more than we had ever seen before. We were not very educated on what exactly to do if he had a reaction, so we gave him Benadryl, and everything seemed to calm down.

After going through our entire morning, trying to figure out what he could have possibly eaten, we realized that the spray we used in the pan for the eggs contained soybean oil.

This new discovery really pushed me to become more diligent in checking labels and monitoring his reactions. We cut any form of soy, soy lecithin, and soybean oil from his diet.

This was a big one because, if you didn’t know, soybean oil is in EVERYTHING. Go ahead and check your cabinets now. I bet the bread you use, your kids’ favorite cereal, and the stash of cookies you have hidden—they all have soybean oil in them.

Once we cut all soybean products from his diet, we saw a significant improvement in his random reactions. We finally felt like we had a handle on his allergies… It just came with a lot of label reading, anxiety, and a very restricted diet for our little man.

Stay tuned for my next entry, where I’ll explain where our food allergy journey took a scary turn—realizing just how serious his allergies were and the true reason why this path to food freedom is so huge for us.