Baby cows milk allergy festival advice...

[cragglesummers]

I wasn't sure where to post this, so hopefully in General is OK...

Does anyone have experience of going to a festival with a young baby who has a cows milk allergy / intolerance ?

A bit of backstory:  We (myself, my wife, my three year old and almost 6 months old baby - she'll be almost 7 months when we go) have tickets for EOTR this year.  The baby has a cows milk allergy which means we have to make special formula for her with cooled boiled water, in sterile bottles, and if making in advance it has to be kept cold. We're currently trying to decide if it's going to be a) feasible to do this at a festival b) fair on her and c) any fun for us!  We have a family friend who is staying in a campervan, who we could potentially store some milk in, but I'm still struggling to see how practical that would be - we'd essentially be trekking back to the campervan every time the baby got hungry... She will only be with us from the Thursday until the Saturday morning, as the grandparents have offered to pick her up and look after her for the rest of the festival.

Our oldest also had the same, but by the time we took her to EOTR she was on soya growing up milk, which comes in large and small cartons and also eating real food.  Unfortunately premade formula bottles for special cows milk allergy formula don't exist and she hasn't taken to weaning yet.

It's looking likely that we'll end up selling our tickets / or possibly claiming them under insurance for medical reasons (though I don't think that will be easy), but I wanted to see if anyone else has any experience / advice of going to a festival with a baby with similar requirements first - my googling has not been fruitful. Just to add that we've been lots of times before and have taken our oldest a couple of times now and she's had a great time and we've never had an issue with coping with a young one at a festival (apart from trying to put up a tent with a toddler who wants to keep jumping on it...) 

Thanks in advance

Edited August 3, 2023 by cragglesummers
Grammar

[Neil]

my son doesn't have a dairy intolerance, but we avoided dairy with him, and always gave him soya formula.

 

at glastonbury we took a small gas stove and sterilised bottles and made up milk, was all doable, but was a pain lugging all that stuff from the car parks  in the pouring rain.

[Ryan1984]

EOTR’s organisers seem like good types. Maybe worth contacting them and seeing if they can help with a solution? info@endoftheroadfestival.com 

If not, maybe a stall could help. It says on the website that EOTR is a small festival so maybe heading to the friends’ campervan won’t disrupt the day(s) too much? It also says they can keep people’s medication safe so might be able to help here?

Edited August 4, 2023 by Ryan1984
Updated info email address etc

[km9]

Interested to understand (and I know this might sound a bit 'mumsnet'), but aren't all babies under 6 months intolerant to cow's milk?

[km9]

When mine were babies I used to have a system where I'd put boiled water into a bottle and then let it cool in the fridge, then when it was time to make a bottle I'd use an amount of boiling water and then after it was mixed, top up with the cooled boiled water (I can't remember the exact ratio). Maybe something like this would work?

[cragglesummers]

Thanks for everyone's responses - really helpful. We decided not to go in the end and have managed to claim the tickets back on insurance - figured next year when she is older it will be easier. Hopefully this thread will help some others in the future.