I’ve often thought that our family would save a lot of money if we just bought a cow because we go through a ridiculous amount of milk. I mean, I love milk, my husband loves milk, and my oldest daughter River loves milk. And cheese. And yogurt. Honestly – my family is keeping the dairy farmers of Canada in business. (You’re welcome.)

Despite our dairy dependency, we decided awhile ago to eliminate dairy from my daughter’s diet for a two-week period. The idea started when a friend of mine mentioned on Facebook that she’s been reading What’s Eating Your Child, now called Cure Your Child with Food: The Hidden Connection Between Nutrition and Childhood Ailments. It immediately piqued my interest; I took the book out of the library and began reading it right away.

I found the children used as examples in the book to be eerily similar to River. They share the same behavioural issues and the exact same diet, right down to the daily lunch of grilled cheese. I was particularly amused to read about a child that wouldn’t fall asleep until midnight each night while my own daughter tossed and turned beside me, unable to fall asleep even at 11:30 pm.

The book covers a number of different food sensitivities and how they can cause behavioural difficulties. The child with the dairy sensitivity seemed most like my own daughter, so I decided to start there. I figured that that there was no harm in going dairy-free for a couple weeks to see if anything changed. After reading a couple paragraphs to my husband, he was on board too.

But how to actually go about it? How do you take away the only food a picky child will accept? I knew that River would be incredibly angry to give up her chocolate milk and hot chocolate, her grilled cheese, and her cheese and crackers (or “cheese crack”, as she ever so innocently has nicknamed it).

To make the transition easier, we hit the local health food store and found a whole bunch of different milk alternatives. We bought chocolate almond milk and plain coconut milk and chocolate soy milk and even strawberry soy milk just for fun. We then steamed them up and made three mugs of hot chocolate, complete with marshmallows.

Our Hot Chocolate Taste Off

• Contestant One: The coconut milk with chocolate syrup was very bland. I found the milk was good for cereal and worked fairly well for baking our oatmeal cookies, but it won’t be winning any awards in the hot cocoa department.

• Contestant Two: The chocolate soy milk was better but too sweet for my taste – I didn’t enjoy the soy aftertaste either. It left my mouth feeling a bit dry.

• Contestant Three: The chocolate almond milk was delicious – it had just the right texture and flavour, and my daughter is pretty good with it. She doesn’t like it as much as the real thing, but its an acceptable substitute. We have a winner!

After four days of no dairy, I didn’t notice much of a difference in River’s behaviour, but I did notice that her colouring was better – her skin was less pale and there weren’t any dark circles under her eyes. She had a few good days, but then a bad day complete with tantrums and a night time meltdown. I wondered if it was all worth the trouble, but we continued on. I figured that if her diet was making her feel crummy, we owed it to her to give the whole dairy-free thing a good shot.

After two weeks, I couldn’t see a huge improvement in River’s behaviour, and yet … there was definitely some change. I could’t put my finger on what the difference was, but I found myself enjoying her more, if that makes sense.

River still had tantrums, but they were less intense, less random, less frequent. And I suppose it was silly to expect a complete personality change — a child isn’t going to unlearn a year’s worth of habits in two weeks, right? There have been other been small changes too. For example, instead of begging to watch TV all day, she stopped asking to turn it on. Suddenly we’re the ones who suggest a video, and sometimes she even says no. I’ve noticed that she spends way longer colouring her pictures now too, taking a lot more time to work on the details. I’ve been happy to see as well that she’s been playing imaginatively again, getting lost in her fantasies for up to an hour. Are these the result of giving up dairy? The book would suggest so. I’m not entirely convinced.

This is interesting though: last Friday, when the two week dairy-free experiment was finished, we gave River back her milk products and her temper flared up again. She had fits of rage that were completely out of the blue — like when she sobbed for half an hour because my husband ate two of her Cheerios.

I was also surprised to see how quickly the circles returned under her eyes.

And another surprise? She doesn’t even seem to want dairy anymore. On Friday, we gave River a beloved drinkable yogurt and she hasn’t asked for another one since. I also gave her a grilled cheese that day and she said it was gross. OK, so I did sneak a tiny bit of cauliflower in with the cheese, but I don’t think she noticed that. It has been five (FIVE!) days since then and she hasn’t asked for more. This is the child that ate grilled cheese daily! What’s more, she’s had two glasses of milk and hasn’t finished either one. Now when she’s thirsty, she asks for water. Honestly, water. She doesn’t even want her “cheese crack” anymore.

Yogurt, milk, cheese and crackers, grilled cheese – these have been the mainstays of her diet for the last year, and after a two-week dairy holiday, she just doesn’t want any of it anymore. I have to believe that that means something. Her body knows.

The final surprise? My daughter, the world’s pickiest eater, has tried new food every day for almost a week. The first time I asked her to try something, she worked herself into the usual frenzy where she ended up crying under her bed. The second day I offered her new food there were more tears. Then suddenly on the third day, she tried something without any prompts. A bit of zucchini one day, a cucumber the next. A sweet potato fry. A bit of tomato. A piece of beef. Today it was a biscuit. She didn’t love them all, but she tried them.

Last night she sat at the table for our family dinner and ate her meal of carrots, broccoli, beef and rice with a glass of water on the side. I can’t describe how good it felt to see her eating a proper meal. I think that I had actually given up hope.

As a side note, my own dairy consumption has dropped dramatically. I was startled when I realized after two weeks that I don’t crave sweets anymore. I don’t constantly want brownies or chocolate. Before Christmas, I limited myself to one root beer a day – two at the most – and now I don’t even think about pop at all. Does dairy make me feel crummy too? Have I been using sugar this whole time to compensate? Who would have thought?

So from now on, as a family, we’ll be trying to avoid milk. I don’t think that we’ll be super strict (nothing will make me give up butter), but we’ll try to keep our distance.

Sorry, dairy farmers of Canada: I’ve discovered that I really like almond-milk – maybe there’s money to be made there?

Update: we didn’t stick with the dairy-free diet — mostly because we weren’t prepared for that kind of commitment, I think. A year or so later, we tried a gluten-free diet and were amazed at the immediate changes. We should ideally have her on a gluten-free/dairy-free diet — at least according to our naturopath — but we’re not read for that yet.