My son during one of his MANY spit-up sessions…
Before having my son I knew that babies spit up from time to time, but that did not stop me from being caught off guard. My son did not just spit up, he projectile vomited enough to fill up a whole bottle! He never cried about it though and would often be smiling as the spit up was flowing out of his mouth.
We mentioned the extreme amount of spit up to our pediatrician at his two week check up, and one month, and two months and four months… and each time she just said that it was normal for babies to spit up. Her only advice was to give him some rice cereal to thicken the milk and help him keep it down. I could write a whole separate post about rice cereal (maybe I will!) but long story short, we tried it a handful times and didn’t see a difference. I wasn’t a big fan of rice cereal to begin with though, so I might have been biased.
Always carry a burp rag!
So we just went about our lives always being COVERED in spit up. There was spit up on the floor, on the sheets, on the couch, on our clothes, on our guests’ clothes, and shoes and you get the picture!
After four long months and many spit up stains, we finally discovered the culprit of our son’s tummy issues. I am a teacher and it was the end of the school year so I bought several pizzas for my class to celebrate. I ate pizza with them for lunch and we had some left over so I brought it home for dinner. There were still several slices left over after dinner so I had some more for breakfast and then again at lunch! Yes, I LOVE pizza!
But sometimes… what you eat affects your baby…
Image taken from Google search
The day following my pizza binge, my son had one of his worst days spit up-wise. My husband put two-and-two together. We began thinking back over the past few months and realized that the days I indulged my love for dairy were the days that my son spit up the most!
I decided to try to cut out dairy to determine if it really was the culprit and after a few weeks, it was obvious that it was. I very rarely eat dairy now and he very rarely spits up. I do still indulge in ice cream from time to time but I know several mamas that can’t even have the occasional slice of cheese in their sandwich.
Cutting out my favorite food group has been a challenge, but definitely worth it the results!
We would love to hear from you! Have your babies shown any sensitivities to foods you eat? If so, which ones?
I’m currently a stay-at-home mom to my son who was born in January of 2015. I have my degree in Anthropology and spent the two years before my son was born teaching. After months of struggling with nursing, I was finally able to have the beautiful breastfeeding relationship I dreamed of. These struggles helped me find my passion for helping other mothers in their breastfeeding journeys and guided me to study to become a lactation counselor.
