Hellobee

I’m so excited to share with you all the progress we have made in the past several months with Sweet P’s FPIES! If you aren’t sure where we have been, check out my previous posts here and here.

Sadly, right after my last post, on her 5th day of chicken, Sweet P had a negative reaction and we removed both chicken and chicken broth from her diet. I was disappointed because chicken is a mainstay in our house, but I knew I had to let go and move forward with the beef. So we were trying increase her beef and beef broth so that we could decrease her breastmilk intake. Since she is only able to tolerate breastmilk that is from dairy free donors, it’s not easy to find women with much breastmilk to donate! But since she was getting closer to a year old we continued to increase her intake of beef and broth and lower her breastmilk intake.

One exciting development in December was the introduction of coconut milk kefir! Not something you can find on the shelves (and GAPS doesn’t advocate for processed food at all anyway), but it’s something I could make at home, so we decided to try it. Kefir is full of natural probiotics, which aid in digestion, especially for kiddos with digestive issues like Sweet P, so I decided to give it a try.

By her first birthday she just had beef broth, beef, and coconut milk kefir. A few more things added were Cod Liver Oil (We use this brand per the recommendation of our GAPS practitioner) and sauerkraut juice. The sauerkraut juice is just the juice from homemade sauerkraut! Most moms who do GAPS make their own, but we have a local farmer that sells lots of ferments and that was one thing that made GAPS less overwhelming so I went for it.

The amazing thing is that this sweet girl loves her Cod Liver Oil! I have tried it and find it so gross, but I guess when there’s no sugar in your diet you’re more likely to like Cod Liver Oil!

In the New Year we added hard boiled egg yolks to her diet. She loved those too! Egg yolks are very healing to the gut, and with egg whites being a more common allergen we just did the yolks. And I kid you not, within a few days of starting her on the yolks she has started sleeping like a pro! For the first time in her life she predictably slept at least 12 hours a night without waking (we usually have to wake her in the morning now!), and having 2 really great naps. I don’t know exactly what nutrient in the egg yolks her body was lacking, but I really think it made a difference.

She has since tried a bit of egg white and doesn’t have a reaction, but she never really eats it when it’s on her tray. One thing GAPS recommended that made me nervous was raw egg yolk. That seemed so scary to me. But, it’s only recommended if you can source local eggs from pastured chickens that eat soy-free and GMO-free feed. Thankfully our fermented farmer also has these high quality eggs, so I slowly started doing softer boiled eggs and now she gets one raw egg yolk for breakfast each day. I would never recommend this if you don’t have a high quality source, and it’s also important to wash the egg really well as well. But, I can attest to its effectiveness in her diet. She loves it and her tummy is doing so well on it.

Along the way we have a couple of trials sadly go badly. Knowing Sweet P’s digestive issues we have had a couple of people offer to donate breatmilk to her that are not dairy free, so we thought we would try it again, but within a few nights her sleep got worse and she was crankier so we cut it out. I also tried Goat’s Milk Kefir (vs the coconut milk or cow’s milk), but that ended up in a very scary diaper on day 3 of that trial, so we will wait several more months before trying it again.

But, recently she has started eating vegetables! The first one we tried was zucchini squash. It’s generally recommended as the first vegetable to try for babies on GAPS and it went great! I do have to peel and de-seed them, which is a pain, but it’s important to get rid of the parts that are harder to digest. After that I chop them and have to cook them in the beef stock that we make for her. This is also per the GAPS protocol. I tried to give her the cooked zucchini chopped up into bite sized pieces, but she isn’t a fan, so I started pureeing it. The nice thing about that is that it has a nice “apple sauce” consistency and is perfect to put in a re-usable pouch and have with me when we are out and about as a snack or part of a meal on the go. And now, a month after trying zucchini, she is also doing well with both acorn and butternut squash!

Enjoying her birthday “beef cake”

Right now she is on Day 3 of trying coconut oil. So far so good and I’m hoping she continues to do well on it! It’s just 1/4 tsp a day since it can be very detoxifying and we don’t want to detox her system too much for sure. But, if the next two days go well, I’m so excited to try scrambled eggs with her! I know she is getting a bit tired of hard boiled eggs and I would love to give her some scrambled eggs sometime too. If she’s like me she would be happy to have that every day for breakfast.

Doing the GAPS protocol for her is so hard. There is no such thing as a quick meal for her. I have learned to do meat and zucchini in bulk so I only have to make a big pot of each once or twice a week, but there is no such thing as grabbing a quick baby food or giving her some of our food when time is short. I have to remember to not only cook food for her, but thaw it when the fridge is running low on certain things. I have to be sure the deep freezer always has soup bones on hand to make more beef and stock for her, and the farm we get that from only delivers to our town once a month, so there’s no running out to the grocery store when we run out.

But, overall GAPS has been such a gift for Sweet P and our family! Just 6 months ago I thought she may be on hypoallergenic formula exclusively until she was 2 or 3 years old due to her inability to digest any solid food we gave her. And I know that is the choice many families make and is the right choice for them. But, I knew in my gut that going with GAPS was the right thing for her and it is worth all the late nights cooking special food for her and cleaning a totally disastrous kitchen. She is such a happy kiddo now and is making progress in her developmental milestones. And the sensory issues that concerned us when she was a baby are totally gone. (GAPS is recommended for sensory issues as well).

I would love for my next update to include lots more foods that she can eat, but for now we continue to take one day and one food at a time and are grateful for any and all progress made! She may not eat like other 14 month olds, but her own personal progress is a total gift.