A completely free breastfeeding CMPA food diary to help record and track symptoms and reaction, and enable you to find patterns and identify allergens.
Breastfeeding CMPA Food Diary, Specially Designed For Mums of Allergy Babies
Breastfeeding brings its challenges at the best of times, such as establishing a good latch, tongue ties, blocked ducts and mastitis, the list goes on. But add allergies into the mix, and it can quickly become very overwhelming.
One of the best and most important ways to regain some control and help to ensure your baby is comfortable, is to keep a breastfeeding CMPA food diary, combined with a baby allergy food diary.
If you’re unsure whether your baby’s skin complaint is the sign of an allergy, you may find it helpful to read more on symptoms of CMPA.
Having lived through nursing a CMPA baby myself, I decided to create a CMPA food diary for breastfeeding mothers, available as a free printable exclusively to subscribers.
There are several options on the market if you’re seeking a standard food diary, but this one has been developed specifically with nursing mothers in mind…
Breastfeeding Allergy Food Diary
The diary includes the expected pages for recording what is included in the diet – for both you and your little one once you begin weaning your allergy baby. In addition, there are:
- List of common allergens;
- ‘Don’t Forget to Check’ list;
- Milk ladder list;
- A safe foods page for your to complete;
- A confirmed allergens and products page for you to complete;
- A suspected allergens and products page for you to complete;
- Double page spread weekly planning pages;
- Planning pages include space for eliminations and challenges for the week;
- Double spread daily pages for keeping track of foods, drinks, medicines, etc;
- Diary to record daily symptoms and reactions;
- Space to note if baby has been teething, or had vaccinations;
- Double page spread weekly overview;
- Double page spread weekly graph and patterns;
- Double page spread monthly graph and patterns.
The graphs are designed for you to plot the symptoms from the previous week or month to help you find patterns between foods and reactions, so that you begin to identify potential allergens.
Once you’ve established a suspected allergen, there are dedicated spaces to include foods you will be eliminating and/or challenging each week, as well as blank pages to fill in for:
- Safe foods
- Suspected allergens and products
- Confirmed allergens and products.
Use This Baby Allergy Food Diary to Identify Allergens
The diary has been carefully thought out and designed to make the process of keeping a daily record as simple and beneficial as possible. Having something tangible to look at can make it so much easier to look for those critical patterns – plus it’s the first thing you’ll be asked to do if you seek support from your GP.
How to Use the Graph Pages of Your Breastfeeding CMPA Food Diary
The daily diary pages includes space for you to record your baby’s symptoms/reactions, scoring them on severity out of 10.
When you come to the graph page at the end of each week, you can then plot symptoms from the previous 7 days based on severity, and draw in a line to give a visual representation of how each symptom has looked across the week.
Once you’ve coded each symptom by colour and filled in the graph, you can then start to look for patterns between your and your baby’s diet, and any corresponding reactions.
There’s space for you to make notes, and reminders of how long after exposure IgE and non-IgE symptoms of CMPA take to appear in your baby, and through breastmilk.
There are also monthly graphs for the same purpose, over a greater length of time.
Here are the diary pages for your to download:
CMPA Breastfeeding Allergy Diary Printable
All of the items on this page can be downloaded and used together as a complete tool for breastfeeding allergy parents to record, track, and analyse data.
A pretty front cover for your diary.
An introduction to the diary and how to use it to for day to day record keeping, identifying patterns and allergens, and when challenging specific allergens.
Pages for one complete week, comprising:
Using the Graph Pages of Your Breastfeeding CMPA Food Diary
Use the graph pages to plot daily and weekly symptoms against severity, and the opposite page to analyse the data for patterns, to help you decide which foods to eliminate and then challenge.
A graph for plotting symptoms to enable you to spot patterns across the week.
A graph for plotting symptoms to enable you to spot patterns across the month.
I hope the diary is useful, and welcome any feedback for how I can improve future copies.
Ana
Sunday 28th of January 2024
Dear Kate, i found your diary excellent as a good tool for mothers who take care of their food allergy children. I am Ana, peruvian pediatrics gastroenterologist. I work in Lima, Peru. I am expert in food allergies. I want to ask you if I can use your diary (translated to spanish and modified in some items) for my patients. I believe this can be a really good gift for mothers. Please let me know if that is possible.
Kate Tunstall
Thursday 1st of February 2024
Hi Ana,
Thank you for your message. I will email you.
Best wishes, Kate