Weaning Your Child

Our weaning support pack contains a huge amount of information and advice to help parents manage weaning with allergy as safely as possible.

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We know that being a parent isn’t easy at the best of times, so when you add a poorly baby with suspected allergy into the mix, we understand that family life can become complex and emotionally challenging. Conflicting advice is also often given through various channels, creating a lot of additional confusion and anxiety.

This is why we have developed this Weaning Support Pack together with leading specialists and with the help of parents with food allergic children.

Together, we aim to de-myth the conflicting advice, explain national guidelines and provide you with emotional and practical support, so that you and your family can enjoy the experience of weaning your baby safely and confidently.

Support our Patient Charter

We’re calling for patients, friends and family of patients, clinicians, and policy makers to lend their voices and support for this Patient Charter call and help us campaign for change.

Pledge your support to back our campaign to introduce an allergy nurse and dietitian as part of the services offered within GP practices.

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Weaning and food allergy

The Department of Health recommends that high allergenic foods: Milk, eggs, wheat, gluten, soya, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, seeds can be introduced from 6 months of age. There is no evidence to support delaying introduction of these foods after 6 months. They should be introduced one at a time, with a gap of 3 days in between each new food, so that it is easier to identify any food that causes a reaction. Make sure your child is well at the time of introduction, i.e. not when they have a temperature, just had a vaccination, or have a cough or a cold.

Once your baby has had several attempts at eating the individual foods, you can start mixing them to increase the variety and enjoyment of eating. It may be helpful to keep a food and symptom diary (a food diary template can be found at the bottom of the page) to identify any foods that may have triggered a reaction. By the age of 12 months at the latest, your baby should have been introduced to all the major allergenic foods (where appropriate).

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Amanda's Story

We know that navigating your way through weaning when your child has an allergy is challenging. Here, Amanda shares her story.

My Weaning Cookbook

Allergy Insights Podcast: Weaning babies with a cow’s milk allergy

Allergy UK’s Clinical Dietetic Advisor, Laura Philips, is joined by acclaimed Paediatric Dietitian Lucy Upton, otherwise known on social media as The Children’s Dietitian, for a discussion which aims to inform parents on how to identify, diagnose and manage cow’s milk allergies when caring for their babies.

Food and Symptoms Diary

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Food and Symptoms Diary

Food and symptoms diaries can help yourself and a healthcare professional to determine what foods may be causing you or a loved ones reactions.

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