Advice About Daycare/school

[gfgypsyqueen]

Hi Everyone,

I really need some help and advice. I have celiac disease. I can manage my own celiac disease just fine, but I do all of the cooking and food purchasing. The problem is my 2 yr old just went gluten-free. She is in a daycare and I need to find a balance about what can be used at the school and what I need to provide for her. Since this is the beginning, I am proving all food and drink until I can sort everything out. She is now in isolation. She has to eat at a separate table. I am sure she will be at that table for crafts too. This makes me extremely sad. This age group needs to be learning about sharing, and being socialized not pushed away. I really need some advice and help.

BTW, the daycare is great and the teachers are great, they have never had this type of allergy and are just trying to keep her safe.

How and where do I draw the line? I understand that 2 yr olds have little in the way of listening skills. And most everything eventually goes into the childs mouth and may or may not get shoved into someone elses mouth. So is a separate table necessary?

What have others done in their children's classes?

[celiacgirls]

My kids were older when they went gluten-free so I've never had to deal with it at that age. I did just recently see my 9 year old daughter sharing food at lunch. She knew not to eat their food but they were putting their hands in her cookies while eating pizza! Then, another day, they were giving her gluten-free potato chips but while they were eating hamburgers (with a bun). So the food sharing will be an ongoing problem, I think. In our case, I talked to my daughter and the teacher talked to the class about cc issues so hopefully that has mostly stopped.

I do have a couple of suggestions. If you can, try to provide, or have them provide, gluten-free art supplies so everyone can sit at the same table to do crafts. Also, since you say the teachers are helpful, do you think they would consider sitting at the table with the kids while they eat and your child could sit between them? That way, she still gets to sit with her friends but is somewhat protected from the others food. Maybe the little ones would eventually get the idea and she wouldn't have to sit between the teachers.

[Kibbie]

Hi Everyone,

I really need some help and advice. I have celiac disease. I can manage my own celiac disease just fine, but I do all of the cooking and food purchasing. The problem is my 2 yr old just went gluten-free. She is in a daycare and I need to find a balance about what can be used at the school and what I need to provide for her. Since this is the beginning, I am proving all food and drink until I can sort everything out. She is now in isolation. She has to eat at a separate table. I am sure she will be at that table for crafts too. This makes me extremely sad. This age group needs to be learning about sharing, and being socialized not pushed away. I really need some advice and help.

BTW, the daycare is great and the teachers are great, they have never had this type of allergy and are just trying to keep her safe.

How and where do I draw the line? I understand that 2 yr olds have little in the way of listening skills. And most everything eventually goes into the childs mouth and may or may not get shoved into someone elses mouth. So is a separate table necessary?

What have others done in their children's classes?

I do in home daycare. My 2 year old has celiac disease and all the other kids have no food issues. Their parents bring their food and snacks. I have made a few rules!

1. No snacks can be eaten unless the kids are sitting down at the table (I do make special exceptions to this when we are doing a project involving food... then I proved the gluten free materials for that project)

2. All the kids sit at the same table in chairs. I give them each a place mat and watch them like hawks. No one is allowed to share food. I clean up the gluten containing food first (so my daughter can't grab it) then the kids who ate the gluteny foods. Then my daughter gets cleaned up last! (Each kiddo has their own washcloth)

Thats how I handle eating:

When I take my daughter to play group and the kids are playing with crafts that contain gluten in them... I bring a place mat again and wash off the surface under it. Then I allow my daughter to play with the gluten free stuff and do the crafts on her place mat.

It was difficult at first but she has learned to keep her stuff on the silly place mat! which is a life saver for quick clean ups Maybe the entire school could go to the placemant system They could make their own with some paper stickers crayons and a lamination machine

[shayesmom]

Hi Everyone,

I really need some help and advice. I have celiac disease. I can manage my own celiac disease just fine, but I do all of the cooking and food purchasing. The problem is my 2 yr old just went gluten-free. She is in a daycare and I need to find a balance about what can be used at the school and what I need to provide for her. Since this is the beginning, I am proving all food and drink until I can sort everything out. She is now in isolation. She has to eat at a separate table. I am sure she will be at that table for crafts too. This makes me extremely sad. This age group needs to be learning about sharing, and being socialized not pushed away. I really need some advice and help.

BTW, the daycare is great and the teachers are great, they have never had this type of allergy and are just trying to keep her safe.

How and where do I draw the line? I understand that 2 yr olds have little in the way of listening skills. And most everything eventually goes into the childs mouth and may or may not get shoved into someone elses mouth. So is a separate table necessary?

What have others done in their children's classes?

We are struggling with similar issues with our pre-school as well. To be honest, I WISH that they would separate my dd for snacks when the other students are eating gluten foods. It has been a cross-contamination nightmare from the get-go and we've had some pretty extreme reactions....considering that my dd is not eating or touching the items which are questionable. But she does share tables and craft areas with the other kids....and the kids touch everything.

I supply my dd with all snacks and whatever special art supplies that she needs. And I keep in close contact with the teacher as to what I can provide for special projects and I've been trying to work with them on creating a more inclusive atmosphere. It's really an uphill battle at times and it's been frustrating.

I've been trying to find ways to keep dd safe and to also include her more in activities/snacks. Instead of focusing on Celiac, I am switching gears and going to go for the healthy food approach. Looking at the pre-school menu, the foods are predominantly from the grains and dairy side of the food pyramid. The only fruit offered is juice and NO veggies whatsoever. I'm hoping to get them to consider offering fresh fruits and veggies as a snack a few times per month so that all the kids are eating a more well-balanced diet and as a fringe benefit....my dd could then be included in snack time and not always have to be singled out. It seems to me that pre-school should be more about interaction and sharing. I don't expect them to cater to my dd's diet only....but it would be appreciated if they'd offer a couple of snacks a month in which she also would be included in the group and not always be the "odd man out". Perhaps it's just me, but I feel that the current policies are a bit insensitive to special needs children and that it wouldn't be that much more difficult (or expensive) to find ways to have them feel like part of the group. And from a dietary perspective....it's appalling what is being served for snacks in pre-school. It's all sugar, hydrogenated oils (trans fats), refined flour and food colorings. Junk, junk, junk. The entire menu ultimately consists of non-foods.

*sigh*. Okay, I am off of my soap box. I hope that perhaps I have offered some avenue of approach for you as far as snack ideas to suggest for the school. If they won't budge....send in your own food ALL of the time. Cross contamination can be a major problem in a pre-school setting. So work on ideas which will be safe for everyone and continue talking to the teachers to see if they'd be receptive to tweaking the routine. Isolation will keep your dd safe. But it isn't helping her with the social aspects of school and it's not helping the other children develop empathy for those who are "different". We all have limitations...it's not a bad thing to learn to understand and respect our differences while also learning how to keep each other safe. Maybe I'm being idealistic....but I don't think that's an unattainable goal.

[Juliet]

My son is three and was diagnosed at two. He does not go to pre-school yet, but he does play regularly at the park spending up to four hours there any single day. He eats lunch there and snacks and has a regular set of friends that he meets there about 5 days a week. As soon as he was diagnosed, we started telling him that he can't have gluten food, only "yummy gluten free." All of the kids at the park share each others' food, but Adrien knows never to eat their food - it took him about a month and a half to understand this. And if he shares his food, he hands it to them or an adult does, they do not grab it from him. The times they have food that he can have (and all the regular parents and caregivers know he can't have gluten - everything is run by me first) the adults will give it to him, not the kids. And Adrien understands he can't have any food given to him unless it is first OK'd by his dad, an authorized babysitter (someone we tell him he can listen to), or me. He doesn't even try it otherwise and surprisingly never grabs for it. And he rarely even asks for it. If he does, and I tell him it has gluten, he understands he can't have it. If at all he seems a little down about it (like if someone has a cookie), I just remind him of other yummy gluten free foods he either has with him at the time or will have when he gets home.

It does certainly help that the adult to child ratio is much higher in this sort of set up than in a pre-school, and that's part of the reason why I'm waiting until this next fall to get him in pre-school. But I hope (and this is a big "cross your fingers" hope) that with his already great understanding of his eating requirements, it won't be as difficult.