Monday 21 September 2015

Dairy free sources of calcium

Having trouble getting your little one enough calcium in their diet? 

Have a look at this post about dairy free sources of calcium. 

Green vegetables are surprisingly high in levels of calcium 

Sunday 13 September 2015

Easy Holidays!

We've just returned from an easydairyfree holiday! Unfortunately no where near as glam as this beach. We stayed in a villa in Majorca with some friends, which was ideal for us, as it gave us control of what and when we ate. 

Honeymoon in Mauritius - maybe again some day!?

Travelling when abroad with a diary free (or any other food allergy) baby can be difficult. Here are some top tips for travelling:


  • Start packing early! The key to a stress free holiday is in having everything ready and planned ahead. You'll have a much better idea of what you need if you can see it all laid out. 
  • Print out a packing list. It is inevitable that you will forget something! You can download these easily from the internet. We managed to forget the child camera unit of the baby monitor (but successfully brought the parent unit!)
  • Get an umbrella pram. Most airlines will let you take 2 items of baby equipment, so leave your beloved bugaboo at home and get a cheap lightweight pram (I found one for £20 in the local charity shop). You won't be devastated if it gets lost or destroyed. 
  • If you formula feed (especially with prescription hydrolysed milk), then make sure not only you have enough to last you the length of the holiday, but also some extra in case of flight delays or emergencies. If you're going away for a week, have enough milk for 12 days for example, or 2 weeks - have enough for 3. Just think worse case scenario - what happens if you spill a tub, or one goes AWOL with some lost luggage!
  • If needed, you can call ahead to a Boots at the airport to request baby food/milk be ordered for you. This saves time at the security gates. 
  • Forget about taking bulky sterilisers or solutions. You can get small microwavable sterilising bags that usually can be used 20 or so times before they need to be replaced. 
  • Bring your own food if necessary! We just returned from holiday and took some dairy free snacks in the hold luggage because we weren't sure what we could get on holiday. Of particular use was taking a small jar of cashew nut butter - it was used LOTS!
  • Learn (and write down) the translation for "dairy allergy" and "no milk" if you are going to be ordering food out and about for your baby. This is probably especially important if your language skills stopped at about GCSE time. 

This little jar made the journey on holiday with us! 

Plan your meals

This is probably what helped the most in creating a stress free holiday with T. We stayed in a villa, so it was easy to prepare our own meals for T and take them out and about with us. 

Here is an example of our week's menu for T:

Shopping list
  • Weetabix (pack of 12)
  • Small bag of rice
  • Small bag of pasta
  • 2 chicken breasts.
  • 6 eggs. 
  • 1 x Cucumber
  • 1 x Avocado
  • Tomatoes (fresh)
  • Small loaf Wholemeal Bread
  • Tinned sweetcorn (x1)
  • Tinned tomatoes (x1)
  • Jam (the adults helped to eat this too!)
  • Small bag new potatoes
  • Mushrooms
  • Oranges, melon, plums, bananas and pears.  
Brought from home:
  • Rice cakes
  • Organix gingerbread biscuits
  • Bread sticks
  • Boots Fruit pots (pack of 4)
  • Small jar cashew nut butter. 
  • Salt free stock cubes for cooking rice, pasta sauce etc. 

Day 1 
Breakfast - Weetabix, chopped melon
Lunch - Avocado slices, cashew nut butter on toast
Dinner - Mushroom omelette, slices of plum

Day 2 
Breakfast - Weetabix, slices of orange, peeled and deseeded. 
Lunch - Chunks of local bread, cucumber, tomato slices. Fruit pot 
Dinner - Chicken with sweetcorn and rice (made double the portion)

Day 3
Breakfast - Scrambled egg. Banana
Lunch - Leftover chicken with sweetcorn and rice. Sliced pear. 
Dinner - Fish with chunks of new potato and carrot. Melon.

Day 4
Breakfast - Weetabix. Orange slices. 
Lunch - Cashew nut butter and jam sandwiches. Cucumber and tomato chunks. Pear. 
Dinner - Tomato pasta. Fruit pot. 

Day 5
Breakfast - Weetabix. Chopped plum
Lunch - Leftover tomato pasta. Rice crackers and cashew nut butter. 
Dinner - Chunks of chicken with avocado and cucumber. Fruit pot. 

Day 6 
Breakfast - Weetabix. Banana
Lunch - Chunks of chicken with cucumber and tomato. 
Dinner - Tomato pasta. Fruit pot

Day 7 
Breakfast - Weetabix. Pear
Lunch - Chicken and tomato rice with sweetcorn. 
Dinner - Mushroom omelette, what ever fruit is leftover to clear the fridge!


It was fairly easy with a reasonably small selection of ingredients to come up with different menus for each day that offered variety. I wouldn't necessarily feed this to T every week, but in the interests of minimising waste, it worked very well. 

Fresh local ingredients can make mealtimes even more inviting. 


If you have any dairy free travelling tips, then please share them too!