Things continued for about a month during which time our third son was still quite irritable, his stools still looked bad and periodically had visible blood in his stool. While I concluded that things were improved on the dairy/soy/tomato/chocolate free diet, there was still something in my diet that was bothering him, but what? I decided to go on what is called the Total Elimination Diet (TED). This diet allows a breastfeeding mother the chance to allow her child’s gut to heal and to determine what specific foods are bothering her little one. The diet consists of eating only rice, millet, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, zuchinni, pears, lamb, turkey.
I was very intimidated by this diet, but from my online support group I knew of many other mothers who were on the TED. They gave me courage, and I knew that I could do it too. I started this diet and found it to be quite difficult, I was eating constantly and never felt full. When I wasn’t eating I was either shopping for food or preparing food. Not to mention I still had three sons to care for & a house to maintain. These were some dark days. I maintained it for about a week and then started to add things in one at a time for 4 days each to "test" specific items. I used this diet to test specific foods, my goal was to determine if my baby could tolerate soybean oil, wheat, eggs, chicken, beef, oats, corn & soy formula (to confirm that soy was truly a problem). He seemed to fail on wheat, eggs, oats & corn. He failed horribly on the soy formula (which also is a huge percentage corn syrup solids - yuck!).
Overall I was on the TED for 2 months, then switched to a more "modified TED". Before the TED I was already 7 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight (just 10 weeks postpartum). After the TED I was 13 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. I resumed a diet with the TED foods as my core foods but added in other foods in moderation including oats, wheat & corn.
I was very intimidated by this diet, but from my online support group I knew of many other mothers who were on the TED. They gave me courage, and I knew that I could do it too. I started this diet and found it to be quite difficult, I was eating constantly and never felt full. When I wasn’t eating I was either shopping for food or preparing food. Not to mention I still had three sons to care for & a house to maintain. These were some dark days. I maintained it for about a week and then started to add things in one at a time for 4 days each to "test" specific items. I used this diet to test specific foods, my goal was to determine if my baby could tolerate soybean oil, wheat, eggs, chicken, beef, oats, corn & soy formula (to confirm that soy was truly a problem). He seemed to fail on wheat, eggs, oats & corn. He failed horribly on the soy formula (which also is a huge percentage corn syrup solids - yuck!).
Overall I was on the TED for 2 months, then switched to a more "modified TED". Before the TED I was already 7 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight (just 10 weeks postpartum). After the TED I was 13 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. I resumed a diet with the TED foods as my core foods but added in other foods in moderation including oats, wheat & corn.
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