For breastfeeding mothers the joy and closeness they feel to their baby while nursing is undescribeable. Occasionally however the baby will have unexplainable crying periods that doctors refer to as colic. While breastfeeding for the first year is best, formula feeding moms have choices in the formulas they can use to help easy the baby’s crying. However, for breastfeeding moms there is only one choice, the breast milk the mother produces.

There are things however that a mother can do to help change the consistency and nutritional aspects found in her breast milk. These include cutting out a few known gassy foods like broccoli and onions, to cutting just about everything out. Cutting everything out is often referred to as an Elimination Diet and is often recommended by doctors and pediatricians for mothers of gassy or colicy babies that are breastfed.

The Elimination Diet focuses on eliminating all hard to digest foods in a mother’s diet. It also includes eliminating all spices and seasonings except for salt and pepper. This is likely to make the food bland and at times tasteless, but if it helps your baby it would be worth it. On the Elimination Diet was created by William G. Crook, M.D. to help determine what different food allergies a person suffers from. It focuses on eating the least allergenic food in each of the food groups.

For the first two weeks it is suggested that the only meats you eat are turkey and lamb, partnered with baked or boiled potatoes or sweet potatoes. For a vegetable you can have cooked yellow and green squash. It allows you to have pears for your fruit, or pear juice, and rice as a side dish as rice is easy to digest. It suggests using a rice-based drink in place of milk to drink or cook with.

After the first two weeks you are allowed to slowly add foods back into your diet starting with items such as sunflower seeds, carrots, beets, salmon, oats, grapes, avocado, and peaches. Add one new food every four days and keep a journal documenting what you add, when you add it and what reaction, if any, that your baby has to it. After you have successfully added the above foods to your diet with no visible problems in your baby you can begin adding other foods like wheat, beef, eggs, nuts, and corn.

Once you determine that these food items are not bothering your baby it is safe to slowly begin adding back in the dairy products to your diet. Other items you should wait on include peanuts, shellfish, coffee, tea, colas and other beverages containing caffeine, chocolate, gas-producing vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, green peppers), tomatoes, and citrus fruits.

Like any “diet” you may begin to feel deprived of your favorite foods or hungry when you first start on the Elimination Diet. It is important not to let yourself starve but rather to make and eating plenty of the foods you are allowed to eat at each stage. Once you determine the foods your baby’s belly can tolerate you will successfully be able to add back in some of your favorites.

Because breast milk is the only form of nutrition to most gassy and colicky babies, they normally respond to the diet change quickly, and begin to act happier and healthier relatively soon. For older babies who are still nursing as well as eating baby food and other solids, it may take longer to see a response and change in the fussiness. It is important to remember NOT to give up and to give both your body and your baby a chance to adjust to your change of diet.