Welcome to The Allergy Mums Club!
I’m Amy and I have two children with cow’s milk protein allergy (cmpa), along with allergies to multiple other foods, dust, pollen and cats. The list is long!
Like many of you will have experienced, it was a crash course to begin with. Adjusting what you eat and the way you live is so hard, especially in the weeks and months after having a baby when you are sleep deprived with an unsettled newborn.
There’s no doubt that getting to see knowledgeable professionals (which took a while!) helped me enormously. But more than anything, other allergy mums have helped me more than I can say. Some mums I already knew, friends of friends, Instagram & Facebook support groups, and people I met in passing or at a playgroup – every single one gave me a tip or bit of information that helped me. I’ve never met an allergy mum who isn’t keen to help someone in the situation they once found themselves in. So, I decided to harvest this spirit and create The Allergy Mums Club!
The Allergy Mums Club is here to:
- Provide a space to share experiences of cmpa and other childhood allergies
- Share allergy friendly family recipes and baby led weaning ideas; always free from dairy, soy & egg, with lots of gluten and nut free options
- Give support to parents new to allergies and those who are struggling
- Signpost towards verified information and helpful resources
Having a child with allergies can feel like an isolating experience, but you are not alone x
Our Allergy story:
When my son was five months old he was diagnosed with a cows milk protein allergy (CMPA), along with soy and wheat allergies. This followed months of struggling with a very unhappy baby who failed to gain weight and had terrible eczema. At that point I was exclusively breastfeeding and my own diet was heavily based on toast, pasta, cake and cheese! To keep breastfeeding I needed to completely change my diet, not easy when I was still in the early days of parenthood and struggling to keep on top of the most basic day to day tasks.
When we got started on weaning then more allergies became apparent, expanding to eggs and all gluten, as well as dairy, soy and wheat. Finding meals to give my son a healthy and varied diet felt like an insurmountable task at times. In the very early days he was given a huge amount of broccoli (I had read it contained a lot of calcium!)!
I now have two children with allergies (my daughter has CMPA, egg and soy allergies) and dealing with an allergy baby was certainly much easier the second time round, with a bit of knowledge under my belt. We’ve come a long way since the 90% broccoli diet, and I’ve learned a lot about how to get organised and provide my kids with a range of meals to get everything they need, without spending my whole life cooking or a fortune on specialist products. I’ve trawled the internet and cookbooks to find suitable recipes and worked out how they can be adapted to be allergy and baby friendly.
I know the huge emotional impact of having children with allergies, particularly on new mums, and unfortunately it can be a struggle to get timely professional help. For me, advice and support from other parents who have been through the same thing has been, by far, the biggest factor in helping me cope. This has continued to be the case as new challenges (most recently dust mite and early tree pollen allergies) have cropped up. On my website and Instagram I share tips and advice about the practicalities of living with allergies, both drawn from our experiences and sharing stories from other allergy parents. By bringing all that I have learned together in one place, and creating a space for other allergy parents to share their experiences, I hope to give some support to others trying to find their way through newly diagnosed allergies – and give some extra encouragement to those who have been battling allergies for some time.
Amy x x
