Now that our son is almost 2 years old, we are starting to find it more and more difficult to spend quality time with family members who continually introduce his most severe allergens into his environments. When these allergens are introduced, it creates an unsafe and uncontrollable environment that can be fatal.
Which raises the question, at what point do you just stop visiting with family to protect your child with food allergies?
Avoiding food allergies when visiting family.
During a recent visit with family who know our son’s most severe allergen is peanuts, drum sticks were purchased for all the children to eat for dessert. Yes, the beloved dessert with chopped peanuts on the top which have a tendency to fall off the cones when you eat them, leaving a trail of nuts all over the floor which our youngest son could easily pick-up and eat causing a possibly fatal allergic reaction.
This wasn’t the first time a peanut product was set free to be eaten throughout the house by children during a visit with this family either. We had a similar incident with peanut butter stuffed pretzels last Thanksgiving which did cause our son to react immediately, and we had to leave early to stop his reaction from escalating and keep him safe.
Unfortunately, because of the possibility of the unsafe and uncontrollable environment that was about to be created again with the drum stick desserts, we had no choice but to leave early. Not only did our food allergy son miss out on spending time with family, our older children did too.
Why won’t family include my our with food allergies?
Another issue we are finding with family is our son being excluded from family events like birthday celebrations along with family desserts.
We have always stood firm that it is our responsibility to manage our son’s food allergies, not anyone else, and we have never expected others to go out of their way to assure our son’s safety, but it would be nice to know when something is planned so we can come prepared with a safe treat so our son can be included and not the only child sitting with nothing to eat.
Sadly, it feels like we are never considered when family plans are made. This isn’t just with eating and keeping our son safe either, this is with everything. But when it comes to the possibility of life or death situation for our son, I don’t understand why a simple conversation can’t be initiated to keep our son safe and included in family events.
When keeping you food allergy child safe dubs you the bad guy.
The worse part of managing our son’s food allergies is hearing the family doesn’t think we trust them with our children. At times, protecting our son to keep him free from a food allergy reaction feels like a double-edged sword with all the criticism we receive.
But how can we trust someone with our child who has multiple food allergies when he is constantly put in unsafe situations? How can we consciously leave our son knowing this family doesn’t understand food allergies or the severity of a possible reaction? Who would be to blame if something tragic happened to our son in this family’s care? Wouldn’t it be our fault for placing our son in a high risk situation? I could never live with the guilt of being the reason our son suffered a severe reaction or death.
What challenges do you face when visiting family with a child who has food allergies? How do you secure a safe environment and help them feel included? Have you ever had to stop visit family to keep your child safe?
Image courtesy of Flickr.
About Stacy Molter
Thanks for bringing this up, I truly believe managing family is one of the biggest challenges my family faced. School and the general pubic was so much easier due to lack of family dynamics. One strategy we used for years (my son is now 14) was to simply invite everyone to our house or to decline the family invitation all together explaining that the stress levels were too high for us to enjoy our visit with a food allergic toddler. After that, our family adjusted beautiful when they realized that “loose” nuts was a deal breaker.
Hang in there, it gets better as they age!
If they do age. I’m fighting this with in-laws and I’m in my 30s. They live to give me dirty looks and say cruel things because I can’t eat what they do.
Thank you so much for participating in Today’s Living with Food Allergies Blog Carnival! I truly enjoy your blog site! http://www.gratefulfoodie.com/living-with-food-allergies-blog-carnival/
My oldest is severely allergic to all nuts and has just started to grow out of the dairy allergies. She is now 12 and it does get better! Your family and friends start to get it. It takes awhile! It was so hard to manage at first when she was little. We had a horrible scare (four days in the hospital after one peanut M&M). We had to take a real hard line and it was tough. You feel very guilty with family and friends. People act like you are exaggerating and even real smart people don’t how to read labels or now where food comes from (e.g., don’t know butter is a milk product). Check out faan.org if you haven’t as they have great resources. It’s very hard and it’s really hard to understand unless you have gone through it. Go with your instinct, you are doing the right thing. Protecting your wonderful baby is the first priority. You are a great mom! All the best.
Thank you for the support Julie! It’s definitely a hard road to travel, but I’m trying to make the best of it. I look forward to the day we can relax a bit and worry less.
Wow – I know exactly how you feel! My daughter is now 3, and birthdays are the toughest since it’s all about the cake. Her daycare celebrates with cupcakes for all the kids, and Lillian has to sit out and watch everyone eat… it breaks my heart. I made allergy free cupcakes for her birthday, which she was able to share with all the kids…. but the next birthday party she was very upset she couldn’t eat the cupcakes …
My in Laws are GREAT with the food allergies – but my own mother has been a difficult in making her understand that her grandkid CAN NOT eat certain foods. I am so glad I found this blog! So glad I am not the only one!
The daycare may be able to keep a frozen cupcake or two in case of a birthday party in her class. At home you can keep frosting in the fridge and cupcakes in the freezer and whip one out if you need it. But no matter what you do, sometimes your kid is the one without. Believe me, I’ve been there. I carry his special treats. My son loves mango baby food in a pouch. Usually I can find something special when I get home. Currently, one Hershey’s Kiss works wonders. Fortunately his allergies allow that.
I am learning to bake without eggs. It is really annoying to have to do it, but now it is fun, and my son is obsessed with baking “safe” cake and muffins. It is a perfect activity for my 3 year old: mixing, measuring, following the steps. He loves it. He gets lots of muffins and cupcakes and he knows how lucky he is. Without his allergies, I would not have permitted him to eat sugar. As it is, he eats more sugar than I would like, but he doesn’t feel deprived. That is the horrible thing about allergy: deprivation. My little boy is trying to learn how the world works and what he sees is everyone else eating cake and candy, over and over again. Right now he has enough treats, I’m with him most of the time, we are doing ok. I hope the folks at his preschool next year can manage it.
Hi Elisa,
Thank you so much for you comment.
This event was at our older children’s school that Mitch does not attend yet. It was also an evening event outside of school hours. Everything our school provided was above and beyond anything I expected and I’m thankful for what they did.
We always carry a cooler of safe food as well for our son, even for emergencies in case our car breaks down. Because you never know what can happen and I like to be prepared.
I agree with the sugar aspect of food allergies. Our twins never had as many sweet treat as our son with food allergies does, and I find our twins sharing Mitch’s safe treats whenever he has them. It’s all good though because it does help Mitch feel included which is all he wants, especially when it comes to his big brothers.
I’m thankful Mitch has started egg immunotherapy, which makes it easier for me to bake for him and convert recipes. I was never food at using the egg replacer, all my baked goods had a funny texture. Cooking without egg is a challenge and I’m happy to hear it is successful for you and you son.
Thanks for the response. Our doctor hasn’t mentioned egg immunotherapy, I will have to do some research on that.
We have baked muffins with the egg replacer but not cake. The cake I make is the chocolate “wacky cake” made with vinegar.
http://southernfood.about.com/od/chocolatecakes/r/bl01018c.htm
The texture is different, but some people like it better than a cake with eggs. Right now I view eggs, peanuts, nuts as poison, I don’t want it entering my little boy’s body. So the idea of eating an egg is pretty gross and definately unappealing. We will see what happens with his baked egg challenge, maybe we will all start again together.