Toddler Dinners: Call for Help on Allergies

This week I am asking my readers for help in a series for Toddler Dinners coming up. A demographic I know needs help in ways of feeding their offspring is food allergy families. I really want to help out here but I am lacking. Landon is only allergic to Asian pears and ranch dressing (random I know). So I want to hear from you. Here are some questions:

  • What are your biggest hurdles? Snacks? School lunches? Protein? I want to know what is the most helpful.
  • Is there anything you would want to tell non-allergy families in the case of snacks on playdates, things to avoid when your kids are around or even just some simple facts to help you.
  • What are the best places out you know of for you child’s allergy?

So teach me. Peanut free, milk free, egg free, gluten free. Leave a comment, contact me, tweet at me, Facebook me…whatever works.  I will compile the results for a few posts in a few weeks.

And here are a few toddler dinners from the week:

Toddler Dinner 1

Toddler Dinner 2
Toddler Dinner 3

Toddler Dinners is my weekly series of posts to explore the world of feeding munchkins. Each Monday I will post our previous week’s meals and a rating on how they went as well as discuss numerous issues we all face. Find out more here. Also be sure to follow me along throughout the week with your creations on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #toddlerdinners.

4 thoughts on “Toddler Dinners: Call for Help on Allergies

  • April 23, 2012 at 9:56 am
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    You know our story I think… most of it anyway.
    Biggest hurdle??

    Attitudes. Of parents mostly – kids are great when one of their own needs some accomodations – parents were the biggest pain in my ASS. “My kid only eats X. No, we will not modify that…”

    As an allergy parent I never wanted any other parent or caregiver to have to feel responsible for choosing things that were safe for my kids. I wanted them to feel responsible to communicate with me so we could all be prepared. I guess that’s my biggest tip – just talk to the parents! They will love that you care enough to ask. Nobody wants their kid to miss out on the fun and 99.9% of the time it never had to happen – just more awareness needed.

    So peanut, egg, milk, were our big three. Peanut was the scariest but also the easier one to deal with beleive it or not simply because it’s more “famous” and generally – there is a healthy respect for peanut/tree nut reactions. But milk spills. And milk/casein is in lots of stuff, so it was tougher to find alternate choices for a little while (better now though.) And eggs… meh – it wasn’t a huge deal for us. I found ways to bake without them and well – Blue Moon rocks. 🙂

    I will say it was a lot harder to manage when they were babies and couldn’t clearly communicate to me how they were feeling. So.Many.Times I was sure my kids were going to end up dead from a random trip to the grocery store (damn those hand out free cookies!) or an innocent playground stop (ACK! Sticky peanut butter EVERYWHERE!) I am also a worrier so I’d blow it all out of proportion in my head. The reality is that a systemic analphylactic reaction is very rare (like nearly unheard of) from allergen contact – it has to be injested. *Alert* this is my perspective based on our allergists position – we happen to agree. I know many parents do NOT… it’s just how we feel and choose to live. For the most part, I was in control of what they injested and over time, my worries got more predictable and easier to step away from… sure there was some milk spilled that got on her arm but you know what? Wash it off, change her shirt and a little benadryl – all good. Nobody freaked out and no epi=pen needed. I learned that we could manage it and not feel like they needed to be in a bubble or miss out. I didn’t want them to be living in fear. It did take time. As parents we feared the unknown, and the possibility of your child suffering or being in pain, or someone (maybe me!) not knowing what to do… that scared the shit out o me for a LONG time… allergies are fast – you don’t have much time to get yourself reacting and rescuing if it happens.

    Schools in our experience are super awesome with allergy management – it’s come a LONG way here. Love our nurses and the plans are rocking. No issues there!

    Great post… I am happy to help parents that are also dealing with allergies especially those newly diagnosed. I am also going to plug Dr. Burks and his staff for their FABULOUS clinical research and studies that are desensitizing kids from these dastardly allergies!! We went through desens for egg with Matthew and it totally worked – he’s been eating eggs for 5 years now with no issue! (he is 11.) We are currently desensing to peanut (it’s been 2 years in program) and he’s getting there. His CapRAST was just about 1300 (blood test value for antibody to peanut) and we’re in the low 200’s now – he eats 13 peanuts (4000 mg) of peanut protein every single day, and soon – he will be allergy free!! Ainsley outgrew milk (although she still does not like it!) at age 7.

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  • April 23, 2012 at 2:05 pm
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    Ranch dressing????? I feel so bad for him. 🙁

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    • April 23, 2012 at 3:48 pm
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      We think it is just a skin allergy but we just avoid it. He doesn’t seem to love it anyway. He seems to like vingerettes anyway.

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  • November 25, 2012 at 1:05 am
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    My son has a ranch allergy too! Just a skin reaction, benadryl has always helped until we decided to just stay away from it. We actually think it might be the acidity in the buttermilk; he had a similar reaction to bleu cheese dressing and that’s the only thing we can think of. Have to be careful with fresh tomatoes and other acids on his face. I always thought it was weird but glad to hear there’s someone else out there!

    Reply

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