Esther Sparhawk

We've found a good gluten-free graham cracker, but I'm not sure if marshmellows are usually gluten-free or not. I've read some labels, but haven't called any companies yet. So far, just reading labels, they seem to say "modified food starch" a lot.

Can anybody tell me what brands of gluten-free marshmellows they have used safely?

Mechelle

Like some of the other parents who responded, my preschooler just got used to having a different treat than all of the other kids. She never complained. She just accepted.

Be wary of a mistake I made once, though. At our preschool, parents provide snacks periodically. Once I made a huge batch of gluten-free sugar cookies. I didn't think Annie would ever get through all of them, so I took some to preschool for our snack day.

Bad idea! The other kids all said "Oooh! Icky!" and that made Annie feel bad. I won't ever do that again! I'll just bring supermarket cookies for the other kids from now on.

Mechelle

My daughters take Yummi Bears multi-vitamin & mineral. On the box, it says, "Free of: yeast, wheat, milk, soy, gluten, salt, artificial colors, artificial flavors, salycylates, and preservatives."

It includes 14 different vitamins, including B-12 and B-6, which I've read are particularly difficult for celiacs to absorb. It's pricey, but my kids are worth it.

The nice thing about Yummi Bears is that they really are yummy! They look and taste like Gummi Bears. The box says their web site is found at www.yummibears.com if you want to look them up.

Mechelle

p.s. I'm sure Flintstone vitamins aren't good for Annie. When we stopped taking them, her skin finally cleared up.

Thanks for the advice, though. Chapstick - who knew?

-E

Yeah, there's been a lot of controversy on this web site regarding the gluten-free status of Chapstick. From what I've gathered, there have been celiacs who reacted poorly to it, as well as Lipsmackers brand. I'd rather not take risks with my child.

Burt's Bees is said to have a gluten-free lip balm product. We might be safer with that.

An additional boo-boo: just today I was visiting with my husband and realized that we glutened Annie with our Dutch oven when we went camping two weeks ago. Cast iron is porous, so any gluten-containing bacon grease we've used to "season" it in the past is trapped in its pores. I'm still learning!

Here are some boo-boos I've made with my 3 and a half year old:

Play Dough

Toothpaste

Vitamins

Shampoo (when she chews on her hair)

Chapstick

Lotion (I don't know if sunscreen contains gluten, but it's that time of year, so I guess I better check)

There's also friends and family who can give your child a treat when you're not looking. I'm told the reaction can happen long after ingestion sometimes.

Good luck to you.

In May, I emailed the Shasta soda company, asking if their soda pops are gluten free. Their email reply indicated that all of their pops are made with corn ingredients, never wheat.

Then I emailed them back with this question: Even your root beer is gluten free? How is that possible? Isn't all root beer made from barley?

They didn't email me back after this inquiry.

I haven't fed my gluten-free daughter any of the Shasta pops, thinking the whole email dialog was fishy. I'd like to know if any celiacs out there in cyberspace have ever tried Shasta pops, and if so, what was the reaction?

Firstly I would like to introduce myself, I am Jacinda from Australia and we are thinking that our son Thayne may have Celiac's as well as a dairy protein and soy allergy. I have a question for you all.

Today he has begun the elimination diet to attempt and find some answers to his problems. My question to you all is this, "how did you deal with other family members while another family member is undertaking the elimination diet eg siblings and husbands?"

I am just freaking myself out at the prospect of the next couple of weeks, this boy today drove us all mad asking for cheese, how do you manage other foods that other people can have when a 2 year old cannot have it?

Thanks for any replies, take care Jacinda

Hello Jacinda,

I have a daughter, age 5 who is not gluten-free; and then there's Annie, age 3, who is gluten-free. It's tough to maintain two seperate menus sometimes, but the best thing I've found is to offer Annie a comparable food item, at meal or treat times. We aren't soy or milk intolerant (though Annie was lactose intolerant before she began the gluten-free diet).

One of the best tools I've found is a book called, "Kids with Celiac Disease" by Danna Korn. It gave me lots of great ideas on sack lunches for school, parties, and it has a whole list of suggested treats (though you must call and continue to check labels, as ingredients do change from time to time). This book has been a life saver for me! I've ordered copies for all of the kids' grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

My kids' dad was a non-believer at first. It seemed like too much trouble to him, I think. Then the diarrhea started to ease up, and Annie's whole personality changed. She went from being a shy, moody, cling-to-mommy child, to being spunky, clever, and outgoing. The personality change was one of the first indications that gave my husband faith in the diet. The next thing that helped was this: after we had been following the diet for a month or two, Annie played with Playdough (a wheat-based clay product), which caused her to have an immediate attack of diarrhea. She had gotten the Playdough under her fingernails, ingested it somehow, and within minutes, she had this sudden diarrhea attack while my husband was at home, witnessing it. Then my husband was sold. From that moment foreward, he started asking more questions about the diet and really tried to help out. Sometimes it just takes time and patience with husbands. They want their own proof, when we wives have already sorted the whole business out and are more sure of our conclusions.

Hang in there. Best of luck to you.

Mechelle

Thank you so much for your ideas and encouragement that sometime this is going to happen. How long after your daughter was gluten-free did she start getting normal stools? As he nears his 4th birthday in Sept it is hard not to feel frustrated and pressured to get him potty trained. I keep having to remind myself that he still has D and doesn't seem to know he is going until after it happens. We are waiting for test results on my 17 1/2 month old to see if she needs to be on the diet too. (Hopefully we can avoid this problem for her!) Kendra

How long before Annie started to have normal stools? Well keep in mind that everybody is different. For Annie, we started the diet in August, but it wasn't a perfect diet yet. I hadn't learned how to protect her from cross-contamination; I was still giving her vitamins which proved to contain gluten later; I even gave her toothpaste that wasn't appropriate. It takes a while before the adult in charge (usually me) really thinks about every single thing she might put in her mouth as a possible contaminate. So largely due to my own mishaps probably, Annie's loose stools didn't start to stiffen up until about January. Even then, whenever she would visit a grandparent, there would be accidents with her diet, and it was as if we were starting the diet all over again.

It seems like she didn't start to have truly solid stools until very recently. One factor is related to our daycare situation. In May, Annie's preschool program ended. Now she's at home with me all the time. I'm able to more cautiously guard everything in her diet. So I would say, starting in May, that's when her stools became a more "normal" consistency, coinciding directly with the end of preschool. That's nearly nine months after we started the diet.

I'm concerned that when she returns to preschool in the fall, her stools may loosen up a bit. Our daycare is the best in this area, but I think she gets cross-contamination at the lunch table, at snack time, from other kids' fingers, and that sort of thing. I do pack her a sack lunch and provide her with her own gluten-free snack time treats, but even the cleanest daycare facility has kid-to-kid cross-contamination.

Annie is 3 and half. She's been on the gluten-free diet for almost one year now. She has gained a little bit of weight (maybe one or two pounds), but the interesting thing is that she's a bit taller, not wider. She still wears the same clothes she wore all winter long.

Still, she acts healthier. No more fearful shyness. No more moody crying spells over super-sensitivity issues like sunlight or music. Her skin problems have completely gone away (finally)!

Her hair is growing in more normally now.

But it has been almost a year, before every symptom began to recede. Even this past spring, Annie was still having skin problems and occassional D.

Annie is 3 years and 5 months old. She started the gluten-free diet last August. It took us a while to get the diet to effect her stools, but she has normal stools nearly all of the time now.

I started potty training Annie at 2 1/2 years old, not knowing she was a celiac. It was like banging my head against a wall. After she got on the gluten-free diet, we came across a new problem. She went from being almost potty trained with mild D to having solid stools and starting all over again.

Part of potty training is learning to feel when your body needs to poop. It's a whole different sensation: D vs. solid stool. When her stools turned solid, she had a lot more accidents all of sudden. I would sit on the side of our bathtub while she pooped and talk to her about "Now feel how that feels, when you're pooping." I could see her processing the information. She would talk about how her bottom "hurts" when she pooped solid. I think this could have been a deterrent. She didn't want to poop, because the poop didn't come out as easily -- it took more push from her.

Some of the things I've done to help her:

1. gave her a rubber stamp on her hand for every successful poop

2. sat with her and talked about body sensations while she pooped

3. didn't act angry if she had D or a D accident-- attributed this to dietary problems, to help her make the connection about what it means to be a celiac

4. showed her pictures of the digestive tract and discussed where poop comes from -- food goes in, poop comes out

5. made her look at her own poop, to understand the difference between what healthy poop looks like and what D looks like (this helps them understand that there is a difference-- and they start to connect to the difference in the way the body feels)

6. read to her from potty training books

I'm told there's a great book for kids about celiac disease. I intend to buy it. Does anybody know what it's called?

Hi Mary,

My three-year-old daughter, Annie, first started her diet in August, 2006. So we've had her on the gluten-free diet for less than a year.

Well, this past spring, she and her sister were riding our family mule. They both fell from the mule. The older sister, who isn't a celiac didn't break any bones, but Annie broke her arm. I don't believe the discrepancy between the two girls' reaction to the fall is a coincidence. Annie's bone density is clearly lower, due to two and a half years of early life with malabsorption.

The doctors said kids Annie's age would heal quickly... but she didn't. They expected her to heal in three weeks' time, but it took twice that. The arm is all better now, but I learned the hard way, that bone specialists know absolutely nothing about celiac disease.

Furthermore, I strongly agree with one of your responders who said, keep a dietary journal. That's what I did. We never would have had a confirmation of celiac disease if it weren't for that.

We use Yummi Bears multivitamins, which say gluten-free on the label. We originally used Flintstone vitamins, but they are not gluten-free, I'm certain. Once we ceased using Flintstone vitamins, Annie's skin problems began to clear up noticeably. The Yummi Bears are not particularly high in calcium though, and calcium is essential when healing bones. I believe Nesquik chocolate milk mix is gluten-free (but it wouldn't hurt to call them first). We used this while Annie was healing, to help her drink more milk than usual, a natural source of calcium.

Best wishes,

Mechelle

Mechelle Annie's Mom - What kind of bread are you using for your sandwiches? My son has been enjoying Ener-G Foods Tapioca bread but as with all the gluten-free breads I have found, it is best if toasted. I also use it for French toast, grilled cheese, and garlic bread. But if your sending it to school, do you toast it first and then does it still taste as good? My son starts kindergarten in Sept. and I am a little panicked about lunch food. At home he eats a lot of hot lunches and I know that is not always convenient in school.

Nicole

It'll stay up there forever, and it will help others with similar questions. You're helping fellow parents with your questions!

Yes! Yes! I see what you are saying!

I just spent the last half hour looking through old posts, and found several which were very helpful!

At work, the boss gets angry if you don't delete your old emails. I guess I was just thinking in terms of email social rules. Silly me!

My Annie is only three, but we do daily sack lunches for her at preschool. It took me a long time to figure out ways to make lunches fun for this kid. Here are some things I include in her lunches:

PB&J cut into shapes with cookie cutters

leftover home-made meatloaf (made gluten-free of course) sandwiches -- cold w/gluten-free mayo

boiled egg sandwiches (we call 'em Easter egg sandwiches)

Bumblebee brand tuna sandwiches on rice crackers (like Lunchables)

homemade potato salad

deviled eggs

Kozy Shack brand puddings

jell-o

raisins/dried fruits/home-made gorp

celery sticks w/ peanut butter

carrot sticks (keep a jar of these in the fridge for easy access)

popcorn (and it can be a pretty cheap treat)

Cracker Jacks (I called on this one months ago, so it might be time to call again and make sure they're still okay)

gluten-free yogurt (Whole Soy & Co. is a gluten-free brand we use)

Envirokids rice crispy bars

I'm a schoolteacher as well as a parent. It sounds like your kids, who are growing and therefore hungry all the time, are also hording food. Next time you go shopping, try this. Buy two of all the cereals, chips, and snack foods. Put each kid's name on one of the two snack food boxes/bags. Tell them that they are not to invade their sibling's snack foods or (come up with a good consequence that works for your kids) will be their punishment. Then they may pace themselves better about the snack foods.

Each kid is worried that the other will eat ALL the snack foods, and he/she will get none. It's a pecking order thing. If your kitchen doesn't have a good-sized pantry, limit your snack items to whatever you do have space for; in other words, don't buy one bag of chips, one jar of applesauce, one can of refried beans, and one box of cereal. Just buy two boxes of cereal and two jars of applesauce. Leave the refried beans and chips for next week. I have a tiny pantry, myself, and I have to compromise all the time.

I, too, am new to this forum. Hope I helped a bit.

Although I've been emailing people through my workplace for years and years, I'm brand new to the whole forum idea on the Internet.

How do I remove a posted topic? Or can I?

My topic was in the kids & babies section. I discussed the options for candy, for my child, who is a celiac. I got lots or responses within 24 hours' time. I was amazed! But you guys don't want our discussion posted forever, right? Once I feel like my question has been answered, aren't I supposed to delete it from the kids and babies forum?

How is that done?

Wow! Thanks you guys! This is my first time on this forum. I wasn't expecting such a quick response. This is amazing!

Annie is eating a Jolly Rancher right now. And she's very excited about being able to do so. Candy is an important thing when you're three!

How about Lifesavers? Does anyone know if Lifesavers candies and lollipops are okay?

And which gum brands are okay? I'm surprised to hear Blowpops are okay, because I thought wheat was a regular ingredient in gum.

My Annie, who is three years old, is a celiac. At the fourth of July parade, she enjoyed gathering candy with all of the other kids on the sidelines. But now that we're home with that bucket of candy, which ones can she eat? Nobody gives out Hershey's milk chocolate on the 4th, because it's too melty. What about Tootsie Rolls and Jolly Ranchers? Are either of them safe?