I am looking for a dairy free, soy free formula. Preferably the one that is the least constipating. I am leaning towards an amino acid formula of which I have only heard of EleCare, Neocate and Nutramigen AA. Have any of you tried more than one of them? If so which one was less constipating? Thank you so much!
I doubt the formula will be constipating if it is soy free and dairy free. Add in a good probiotic daily for the baby and that should clear up constipation issues. Best of luck =)
My son has been drinking Elecare for a little over a year now. (under the supervision of his GI) He has not had any issues with constipation or gas. If your child has dairy issues- DO NOT USE Nutramigen. It does contain dairy - though it is broken down, it may still bother your child. (we found that out the hard way! - also our GI confirmed it does contain dairy) I am not sure about the ingredients in Neocate.
Try giving him prunes or baby food prunes mixed with cereal. That always helped my son.
My daughter was allergic to Casin so she was on Neocate. She did great, gained weight very easily and never had any constipation problems. Hope you find something that works. BTW, she is 20 months old and has already out gorwn her allergy, thank goodness....
When my son was an infant he was on Alimentum. Alimentum and Nutramigen are really the only infant formulas that are soy & dairy free. The EleCare & NeoCate are supplements, not actual infant formulas as far as I know. The nutritionist at the cancer center that he is now a patient in has said that the EleCare is also mainly used in tube feedings b/c it has a horrible taste. She is NOT wrong... it's nasty! Even mixed with banana and rice milk it's horrible.
Talk to your pediatrician and hopefully they will be able to guide you in the right direction and tell you what you can add to help with constipation... i.e. using oatmeal cereal instead of rice, use prunes and other fruits more than bananas and applesauce...
Hope you find the info that you and your baby need!
My two boys were on each of those formulas. Neither of them were on nutramigen for very long so I am not sure about that but between EleCare and NeoCate I found that EleCare was better. Good Luck! Hang in there, something will work. I also gave my son, that was on NeoCate some pear juice everyday, just about an ounce or two right after is nightly bottle and he did great!!
My 8 month old son is on Elecare right now. When he started it at 3 weeks old, he was very constipated. The GI doctor first said to mix in some Miralax with it to relieve the constipation. This did work but it was horrible on his stomach. At around 5 months we started giving some pear juice diluted with water and this helped a lot. Now at 8 months, he is eating solids and baby food fruit and vegetables everyday and constipation is not an issue anymore. Good luck.
Elecare is the best bet in my opinion. Nutramigen AA is relatively new, so not much info on that. I always see samples of Elecare, and I like that you don't have to switch formulas when they get to be a year old, like some of the others.
