Allergies and Moodiness in Kids

This last week brought with it a couple of the most challenging days I have ever had with the twins. They were grumpy, whiny, uncooperative, and just plain crazy! At one point, all three of us were crying. Me, because I had a fat lip from a head butt to the face and broken glasses in my hand. Isn’t parenting glamorous? Wondering what happened to my happy little girls, I could only come up with the following explanations:

• they were teething
• they were getting sick
• they were overtired
• they were plotting against me

After careful examination of each of these, I decided that they were not teething (got bit a couple of times checking that one out, ouch!), they didn’t seem sick, they had napped and slept well, and I sincerely hope that they are not yet able to plot against their dear old mom. We will save that for their teenage years.

Perplexed, I found myself falling asleep after the second day of well…hell… thinking about what on earth could be going on. It suddenly hit me. Milk. It doesn’t always “do a body good”.

We have been dealing with a sensitivity to cow dairy products since they were 5 months old when we introduced one bottle at night of formula (I had to give the breasts a break!) Suddenly the girls had eczema. After trying this and that, we eliminated cow dairy from their diets and voila, eczema mostly cleared up!!! I recently was told by my pediatrician that I could begin reintroducing cow dairy to the girls’ diet to see how they tolerate it. A few days of cheese and yogurt later, and the eczema was a little worse and the girls were insane.

I wondered if it was just the increased itchiness that made the girls grumpy but the fact is that they have had way worse eczema and not been so nuts. I googled about the internet and found research that has found a link between the moods of children and allergies. In fact, constant fussiness and insomnia are classic signs of a food tolerance issue.

Relieved by the thought that there was a likely explanation for the girls behaviour, other than that I had given birth to two she-devils, I cut out dairy the next day and they were wonderful. Same with the next day. I am convinced that their mood was related to the milk sensitivity and I will certainly look to allergies as a possible explanation for behaviour issues in the future.