Cheese, I Miss You, Your Friend, P

Around 6 weeks of age we noticed that our newborn Bo would cry pretty much all the time. Part of this was being a newborn and going through what felt like a month long growth spurt but we noticed that his cries were more shrill and painful sounding after he ate. He was also pretty gassy and would arch his back and sometimes spit up. Bo hated to lay flat, would rarely nap unless attached to me and was generally an unpleasant person to be around. Life was fun.
Don’t misunderstand me, I was over the moon ecstatic to have a baby who was eating well and gaining weight and coming out of the barbituate-induced stupor he had lived in for the first 4 weeks of life but at the same time sometimes I needed to take a shower or brush my teeth or use the bathroom. These activities are pretty impossible when someone is screaming THE ENTIRE TIME.
We tried Mylicon drops and Gripe Water which helped but did not eliminate the painful cries until one day, March 5th to be exact (the day before my birthday) I noticed that we had been having a relatively peaceful day. Bo had eaten well and had napped afterward with minimal gas or painful cries. I started to think about what I had eaten recently and it dawned on me that it wasn’t so much what I was eating but what I had not eaten that may have made the difference…dairy.
I am a self-professed cheese addict. I like all the cheese all the time. I could (and did at times) eat cheese at every meal. I also enjoy ice cream, cream in my coffee, butter and chocolate. Well as luck would have it I had not had any of the foods of the milk variety since the afternoon of March 4 and low and behold I had a happy baby on my hands.
So I tested the theory.
On March 6 (my birthday) I indulged (as one does on THEIR BIRTHDAY) with cream in my coffee and butter on my toast. I lived to regret this decision as for my birthday Bo gave me an all day cry fest complete with over-tired painful shrieks and a refusal to nap. Bingo. My baby has a dairy sensitivity. Happy Birthday to ME!
Bo’s pediatrician does not believe that it is a full-blown milk-protein allergy (thank goodness) so he should become better able to handle dairy as his GI system matures. All I know is that when I eat cheese he cries and when I don’t eat cheese he naps so I have decided to not eat the cheese or drink the cream or eat the cream in iced form. I of course have shared my sacrifice with everyone because I crave pity but in all honesty I feel less bloated (sorry TMI) and have lost 4 lbs in 2 weeks which I have never done before in my life so this dairy-hiatus is not all bad.
Plus, I have a happy, healthy, growing, smiling baby and that makes it all worth it in the end.