Transitioning...

[stolly]

We're having a bit of a rough start with the gluten free diet. Our 2.5 yr old daughter has been spitting out the new cereals and pastas, which is mainly what she used to eat. We've tried mac n cheese 3 ways, plus buttered noodles today, and she gags n them. Maybe is the texture she doesn't like? She doesn't like much of the packaged stuff, except pretzels, and she doesn't like the graham crackers I made (hubby and I like them though!). She's pretty much been eating fruit and cheese the past 4 days, plus a few slices of the bread I made, which I know is fine for a short period of time. Just wondering how smoothly this went for anyone else with small children? Any tips, suggestions?

[Worriedtodeath]

I would suggest going to a fruit/veggie/meat only diet for a couple of weeks or even a month and then start introducing one or two things in each week. Like maybe crackers with peanut butter for snack and pasta for dinner. By the time our baby was dx, she was so picky and ate so little that she liked nothing. And we were so desperate that anything was better than where we were. I think babies are alot smarter than we give them credit. It could be that she on some level understands that if she eats pasta, she gets sick. I know it took a good 3 weeks before my kids' tummies stopped hurting. Until then, they didn't want to eat and didn't care to eat. BOth my boys (much older) were delighted the first time they had gluten-free pasta and reported they didn't feel sick after eating. SOmething they always had felt and just assumed that was the way one felt after eating pasta. They had never expressed that until after going gluten-free. We would have never known that if it wasn't for the diet. She may have those same feelings and not be old enough to understand gluten-free pasta and such won't hurt. Plus, we still have to be careful with gluten-free foods like pasta, bread, and crackers because our child was sick enough that too much of them and she will get sick again. I think she's was so sick that everything bothers her stomach and we just have to be careful with what she eats and how much. if I give crackers at snack, pasta at dinner, and pancakes tomorrow morning, she will have an upset tummy. So I have to limit her gluten-free grains (whatever you want to call all of that that goes into gluten-free foods) and not give her stuff back to back or several in a short amount of time. You may have some of that going on or just 2 year old refusal to eat different stuff LOL!! That too can play havoc on the gluten-free diet. You are not alone in this. SOme of it may be the age and some of it may be she still doesn't feel good enough to eat much. I lived on crackes for 5 months of each of my pregnancies because it was the only thing that tasted "right". She could have that going on as well. She's just eating what tastes "right". Just cook good simple food and have lots of fruits and such on hand. I'm sure she will begin to eat before much longer.

HTH

Stacie

[Ridgewalker]

We're having a bit of a rough start with the gluten free diet. Our 2.5 yr old daughter has been spitting out the new cereals and pastas, which is mainly what she used to eat. We've tried mac n cheese 3 ways, plus buttered noodles today, and she gags n them. Maybe is the texture she doesn't like? She doesn't like much of the packaged stuff, except pretzels, and she doesn't like the graham crackers I made (hubby and I like them though!). She's pretty much been eating fruit and cheese the past 4 days, plus a few slices of the bread I made, which I know is fine for a short period of time. Just wondering how smoothly this went for anyone else with small children? Any tips, suggestions?

This sounds about par for the course. My older son was 6 when we put him on the gluten-free diet, and I swear he ate nothing but carrots, peanut butter, fruit, and cheese for a week.

Fruit, homemade bread, and cheese isn't a bad start! Will she eat different types of fruits? Applesauce, grapes, peaches, strawberries, bananas-- all have different nutrients in them. Cheese has calcium and protein.

Are there any veggies she'll eat? Green beans, corn, sliced cucumbers, and sweet peas were my kids faves at that age. When Ezra was 18 months-3 years his favorite food in the world was thawed out frozen peas. He ate them like candy.

What brand of pasta are you cooking? I've tried several brands, and the one we like the best is definitely Tinkyada. Nothing else measures up for my kids. For mac and cheese, we like Annie's gluten-free mac and cheese, BUT- it took MONTHS, literally, for my kids to get used to gluten-free mac and cheese. They loved their old mac and cheese and were reluctant to accept any substitutes. Eventually it grew on them, though, and they eat it regularly now.

For cereal, we get Trix, Fruity Pebbles, and Cocoa Pebbles at the regular grocery store. We also get Whole Foods' 365 brand Cocoa Comets (like Cocoa Puffs), and Envirokids Gorilla Munch (like a crunchier Kix).

Oscar Meyer franks are gluten-free. Kinnikkinick frozen pizza crusts (at Whole Foods frozen section) are quite good.

Pamela's Pancake and Baking Mix (Whole Foods) makes the most awesome pancakes. I add in things like blueberries, mashed banana, or chocolate chips. Be careful with pancake syrup, as many have gluten. Pure maple syrup is safe. All-fruit preserves are good on pancakes as well.

Remember that introducing a large number of new things at once is likely to backfire. And it takes children something like 10-25 times of trying a new thing food with an unusual taste to get used to it.

[Kibbie]

We're having a bit of a rough start with the gluten free diet. Our 2.5 yr old daughter has been spitting out the new cereals and pastas, which is mainly what she used to eat. We've tried mac n cheese 3 ways, plus buttered noodles today, and she gags n them. Maybe is the texture she doesn't like? She doesn't like much of the packaged stuff, except pretzels, and she doesn't like the graham crackers I made (hubby and I like them though!). She's pretty much been eating fruit and cheese the past 4 days, plus a few slices of the bread I made, which I know is fine for a short period of time. Just wondering how smoothly this went for anyone else with small children? Any tips, suggestions?

MY daughter was diagnosed at 18 months (she'll be 3 tomorrow) and it wasnt until just about a month ago that my daughter started to eat the "gluten free" substitutes. She would turn her head away from bread, waffles, cookies etc for the longest time. Half of the time I wondered if somehow she knew it made her sick before. For the longest time her daily diet went something like this:

Morning:

Milk or yogurt

fresh fruit

egg

Snack:

Fresh fruit

cheese

Lunch:

Left over dinner

Fresh Fruit

Meat of some sort

Hard boiled egg

Snack

Fresh fruit

cheese

Dinner:

Meat from what we had

vegetables from what we had

When we went out:

Breakfast:

Egg over hard with a side of fruit

Lunch:

Grilled chicken breast cut into strips and a side of fruit

Cheeseburger no bun with a side of fruit

Dinner:

Grilled chicken breast cut into strips and a side of fruit

Cheese burger no bum with a side of fruit

And for a special treat she'd get ice cream on certain occasions.

Now she will occasionally ask for cereal or waffles for breakfast, And occasionally a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. But she still sticks to her bread less ways for the most part. I'm okay with that, she gets her fiber and minerals from fruits and vegetables and protein from meats eggs and cheese. Frankly she's a lot healthier than many of the kids I know that are her age.... and she likes to eat things like salmon and steak that most 3 year old wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole

[Juliebove]

My daughter was 6 and we really didn't have many problems at all. She is good to try new foods. The only real problem was the bread. I kept trying to make it and I couldn't get two loaves ever to come out the same. She'd find one bread she liked and either I could recreate it or I couldn't find it again in the store. Or if I did find it, it was bad. Frozen loaves that were all crumbled. She's 9 now and it's much easier these days.

[Cinnamon]

Bell and Evans gluten-free chicken nuggets and chicken tenders are really good, and they're available in our local grocery store, I don't have to make a special trip to the health food store to get them. Even the gluten eaters at my house like them. I've also made breaded chicken strips by dipping the chicken into melted butter and then rolling in crushed Nature's Path gluten free corn flakes. The kids love to crush the corn flakes for me! Chicken nuggets are usually popular kid food, so maybe she'd eat them. My son would eat them every single day.

[Juliet]

I think your real problem is you have a 2 year old!

When my son was diagnosed at 2 and 2 months, he wouldn't eat any of the substitutes for the food he used to eat. He lived on Bush's beans, white rice, purple grapes, applesauce, once in awhile Envirokidz Gorilla Munch (got him to try it by calling them "cracker balls" - two things he loved before going gluten free) and occasional jarred peas. He also drank milk and was willing to eat ice cream . That was it for 2 1/2 months straight. We took him to the nutritionist after doing this for about 4 weeks (it was the soonest appointment, but they did ask us to write down approximate amounts of food and what he ate each day. The nutritionist looked at it and said his diet was fine - he was getting more or less enough of all the things he needed - carbs, protein, minerals. If it was all he was willing to eat, than that was fine. After awhile he started branching out, and now at almost 4 1/2 he eats a pretty varied diet compared to most kids.

At the time, I chocked it up to the big diet switch. But then my daughter hit 2! She's been gluten free for quite awhile, and before 2 she would eat anything we gave her. She LOVED (and despite the change in habit, still does) to eat. Spicy food with onions, garlic, whatever she'd eat - Indian curries, Thai food, beans, asparagus, veggies, everything but meat. Now her diet consists of: Wellshire Kids gluten free chicken nuggets, the "veggie" Alpha Taters from Ian's, Trader Joe's bean taquitos, occasional cereal, and cheese. She'd live on chocolate, ice cream, and cheese if she could. No fruits or veggies at all! I can't even get her to eat pumpkin bread! I miss my son's "balanced" diet from before!

[Pattymom]

It does sound like a pretty normal 2 year old thing. We went gluten free at 3 1/2, and it mostly went pretty smooth, but then she does eat a lot of yogurt and fruit. I think it might be smart to avoid the substitute foods until you have some distance from the regulars. We jsut avoided pasta and bread for a while, when we introduced the substitutes they tasted pretty good because the memory of the real thing was vague. Thsi is how I got myself of gluten as well, even at 30something. I just had gluten free angel food cake last week, adn thought it ws great. My husband assured me it was because I dont' remember the real thing. works for me!

Also not all pastas are equal, we also stick with Tinkyada.

Good Luck

Patty