Early Allergen Introduction – An Update on Our Journey

Sharing an update on Early Allergen Introduction at 6 months old, including simple foods that I am regularly incorporating into my little one's diet.

A few months ago, I shared that my baby was starting solid foods and his pediatrician had encouraged me to incorporate potentially allergenic foods into his diet. Today, I am sharing an update on how we are doing. I hope this simple list of foods gives other parents ideas on examples of foods to incorporate during early allergen introduction.

We started solids at four months (you can read about that here), the next month Baby B was not interested in solid foods. He was sick twice and we did not introduce any new potentially allergenic foods during that month. The following food examples are ones that we regularly started incorporating at six months.

6 Month Food List

EGGS: Diced scrambled eggs, pieces of omelet, hard-boiled egg yolk mixed with baby cereal, pancakes, muffins, French toast

WHEAT: Baby cereal, wheat toast, pancakes, muffins

PEANUTS: A very small amount of peanut butter stirred into fruit puree or baby cereal, soft peanut butter oatmeal bar and Bamba Peanut Snacks

MILK: Very small amounts of milk-products that have been cooked in pancakes, muffins, French toast and omelettes

SOY: Arrowroot cookies, supplemental baby formula

FISH: Flakes of baked salmon

Out of the top eight allergens, this leaves only tree-nuts and shellfish to be introduced. I am hoping to introduce tree-nuts this month, my biggest concern is about keeping my toddler safe from accidental exposure. If you are a food allergy parent and have successfully managed this, I’d love any tips!

Overall, these foods are quite simple. When I first started on this journey, I anticipated buying specialty baby food. For us, early allergen introduction became so much easier after six months old! Brooks is starting to reject baby purees, so I plan to start mixing peanut butter into the pancake batter.

If you have a little one and are incorporating potentially allergenic foods, I’d love to hear what’s working for you, feel free to leave a comment below.