Lactaid also makes lactose free and reduced milk available in whole, 2% and skim. Land-o-lakes has recently started making lactose free milk too. My sister had the same problem as your daughter when she was a toddler (milk hurt her stomach), so the whole family switched to drinking Lactaid. That was eleven years ago, and it took some getting used to, but now we prefer it to regular milk.
Another one here who quit drinking milk at age 3 or 4, simply because I didn’t like it. I like it in stuff - cereal and coffee and such - and I love love love cheese and yogurt and ice cream and all that. But a glass of milk? ick. Won’t drink it. I seem to have turned out OK without it.
So I wasn’t the only one … ?
I hated milk when I was a child (back in the days when you used to get milk free at school) I got into so much trouble for not drinking my carton of milk every day, and I was treated like a circus freak - “look children Lobelia hasn’t drunk her milk again!”. :mad:
I still cannot stand the taste of plain milk, I’ll have it in coffee, or warm on cereal, but not on it’s own. Milkshakes are different they taste of whatever flavouring is in them.
Sounds indeed like lactose intolerence. Here’s what I’d try FIRST, before giving up milk entirely-
buy lactaid brand milk. It does not have lactose. Also, you can buy lactaid tablets which contain lacTASE (the enzyme that digests milk). They are safe for kids. See if either make a difference. Frame it as an experiment so she might be more willing to try it one or two last times. Flavored milk, while not a good thing for diets long term, may be useful just to get her to do this experiment.
If these things don’t make her feel better, or she still won’t drink milk, eat yogurt, etc, try soy milk or another milk substitute. Ask the doctor for a calcium supplement reccomendation. She will also need vitamin D.
Hopefully this will be fine.
Maybe I’m cruel, but I feel that if she can’t have milk, then she can’t have ice cream either.
If she’s really lactose intolerent, then she shouldn’t be having ice cream anyway.
If it’s a power struggle, then it’s up to you to be the parent.
That being said, when I was little, my parents would take us to visit my grandfather. His brother (my great-uncle) ran a dairy, so we always had fresh milk. Unfortunately it was Guernsey milk, and I had been raised on Holstein. I couldn’t stand the stuff. My parents came up with the no milk/ no ice cream rule. I changed my tune real fast.
Blue milk is hard to find. It only comes from blue cows, which may only be milked once in a blue moon, preferably while listening to The Marcels 1961 hit record.
Here’s an anecdotal solution for you - move to Europe. I traveled with an American friend in England, Scotland, France and Spain for a couple weeks. He claimed to be lactose intolerant, but drank milk the entire trip and enjoyed it, didn’t get sick either. Perhaps it tasted different, or wasn’t cow milk.
Thats not really true. I’m somewhat lactose intolerent and I can eat a scoop or two of of ice cream with no problem at all but a full glass of milk would be extremely painful. I can eat a lot of frozen yogart and feel nothing as well. I beleive different milk products have different lactose levels.
Or on Tatooine.
It’s not worth making her drink it, at least in my estimation. Others characterize this as a power struggle - clamp down now, or next week she’ll be leaving toys on the floor or getting her nipples pierced and running off with a twenty-three year old! But maybe she just doesn’t like milk, in which case I sympathize with her fully. Milk, despite what people seem to think in the US, is not a prerequisite for healthy growth.
Actual lactose intolerance is quite rare at this age; my understanding is that it normally begins to set in around puberty. Keep in mind, any genetic defects that would lead very young children (possibly up to age four or five; at least some hunter-gatherer cultures now breastfeed for this period) to be lactose intolerant in a pre-20th century society would simply kill the child. But an allergy, or a strong distaste, or possibly some more complex medical disorder could be at play.
I’d go to the pediatrician and discuss how to provide nutrition without milk (as well as the possibility of some medical condition here). Perhaps he’ll recommend supplementing with calcium, or a multivitamin (to replace the vitamins A and D that they fortify milk with), or a special diet of some sort. And heck, she might grow out of it in three weeks too. Or get her interested in calcium-fortified soy milk before she’s developed a pernicious fear of soy foods. Personally, I love the stuff.
Or not. She might just freaking hate milk, like I do (and, to a lesser extent, did.) And if she does? It’s not too hard to make a complete diet for a kid without the stuff - why force her to consume something she hates just to demonstrate your power? The attempts to turn this into a conflict above seem almost pathological to me. I can’t see why it’d be worth it, when there are other alternatives.
Of course, if you do give up on milk, do watch her with other dairy products. I don’t see why she should have to drink milk in order to get ice cream - but still, if she DOES have a physical reaction to dairy, it’s worth watching her in case she doesn’t want to admit it and stop getting ice cream.
But it’s not a great idea to give her lactase, simply because if it is a medical condition, it’d be pretty unusual for it to be lactose intolerance at her age (and if she is lactose intolerant, I understand that can coexist with or be a result of more serious digestive troubles, like celiac sprue - it’s an allergy to gluten (if I remember right) that can have pretty major consequences.) So first get her checked out with the doc, and then make a decision about an appropriate course of action. I generally don’t think it’s worthwhile to force kids to eat things they hate, but then, you have to decide if she’s starting to be manipulative with likes and dislikes, because that’s problematic.
There are several calcium and Vitamin D fortified juices on the market, if she drinks juice.
Good ways to get dairy into a kid that doesn’t like milk:
Yogurt smoothies (if you’re concerned about the sugar, or just the exorbitant price, make them at home with fruit, plain yogurt, a blender and some ice cubes); pudding (simple as can be if you get the instant; you can use sugar-free if you’d rather); peanut butter balls (mix half cup powdered milk with half cup peanut butter and a drizzle of honey; form into balls and refrigerate); cheese of any kind.
On colored milk: when my oldest was little, she asked for milk one day. I said “Do you want chocolate, vanilla (which is what she called plain white milk) or spinach-flavor?” “Mommy! There’s no spinach-flavored milk!” “Sure there is. I’ll fix you some” a little green food coloring, and, voila! Spinach-flavored milk. She loved it. Boy was she disappointed when a relative served spinach with dinner and it didn’t taste like her milk!
I hated milk when I was a kid. I grew up to be The Tallest Female In My Family. (Seriously. At 5’4", I am a God! An Amazon!! A Giant!!! Allllllllll must bow before me!) I also never had a single cavity until I was 25, and that’s only because my meds interfere with my spit.
Ma never made an issue of it (which was surprising. But then, she was raising 6 kids by herself. What a zoo. Milk was a non-issue, I’m sure, over little things like not losing one of us at the Hinky-Dinky.)
And I really disagree that this is a power issue. If the kid genuinely doesn’t like milk, what difference does it make? I didn’t like steak when I was a kid, and was once sent to my room without any supper because I “refused to eat what was on my plate”. Even tho I ate everything else, including veggies, and was otherwise not a picky eater. Still is a painful memory for me, as it clearly was not me who was having the problem with power!