Food allergies and daycare
Our daughter will start daycare in August. Today we went there for a quick visit to talk about her very narrow diet. She has all together about twenty ingredients she can eat.
The lunch at the daycare comes from a catering company plus, snacks they make themselves. I thought I could just give them a list of the suitable foods and they would fix something for her out of those. But instead the city and the catering company demand a doctor’s certificate of the food allergies. Fair enough, we have seen a doctor regularly because of her allergies for over a year now and she can write a certificate for us.
But another problem came up. The city seems to think that if you don’t get an anaphylactic reaction of the food, it’s not an official allergy. So very bad stomach aches, diarrhoea and so on, aren’t really allergy symptoms even though our allergy doctor would say so. So basically, they don’t need to make any special food for our daughter.
After I heard that, I suggested that I would make her food myself and take it and put it into the daycare’s freezer. Then the catering company wouldn’t even need to make any special foods for her and no certificates would be needed.
But another problem came up. The city supervises that no one (no outsider) will bring any food to the daycare. They are worried about health risks, but at the same time it seems to be fine if our daughter will suffer from the food that she is “forced” to eat since they ignore her allergies.
Everything is open still. The daycare would gladly offer her only her own foods and/ or let me bring the lunch for her but they are not sure if they will be in trouble because of that. Our daughter is pretty shy in a bigger group and she has never been in a daycare before, so this new start is a bit of a stress for me even without the whole food circus.
Let’s see what will happen but for me it feels like a waste of everyone’s energy. I understand that not everyone can demand special foods for their kids, but if there is an allergy or other problem behind it, I don’t really understand why it needs to be so difficult.
Hugs, Momone
So they wouldn't consider seizures to be sufficiently dangerous? You don't know what is causing them yet, but you don't know that it isn't food related, so surely your doctor could say that she suspected food allergies to be causing them?
I'm sure you have looked into many things with her allergies that you haven't talked about, but just in case you haven't heard this... Before epileptic drugs, the standard of care for it was a ketogenic diet. I gather that the seizures are not considered epilepsy? But even so, I wonder if such a diet would help. I know that would be hard to even consider, given how restricted she is already. But the next question could then be, if a keto diet helps, might even some of the "safe" foods be causing a problem? (Heaven forbid!)
What are the 20 safe foods?
If it might help to talk about it, I'm happy to talk either here, or in private.
Thank you, @kiwideb :) You are right, we don't know what is causing the seizures so everything is possible. Doesn't seem to help with the daycare though.
The problem with ketogenic diet is that her suger levels have been acting up now. Before this all happened (seizures) we were pretty strict with sugars because she suffered from low blood sugars straight after birth. So she has been mainly eating meat and vegetables plus some berries. Now we had to add more "sugary" stuff .. since we don't know if insuline/ sugar is part of the problem.
At the moment she is able to eat chicken, pork, reindeer and lamb, sweet potato, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, butternut squash, corn, raspberry, lingonberry, rose hip, lettuce, Teff- flower (porrirge) and some fruits (pear, peach, mango, banana, apricot) but only in certain form from a certain brand (ready mashed, no added sugar).
That's about it. Oh dear.
The reply I was going to make here ended up being very long, so I'm making it into a post. Are you ok for me to mention you in my post and make some comments on possible underlying issues and possible things you could try? First post will be about allergies. Then I might do another one about seizures tomorrow.
Sure thing! Can't wait for the post. :)
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Are there private daycare facilities unshackled by the rigid city bureaucracy?
I wonder if schools are as inflexible about lunch as the daycare centers.
This is a private one. :/ I have heard that schools have the same kind of system.
What about daycare in a private home? The entire problem could be sidestepped that way.
At school, I don't think any pupil can be forced to eat and an allergic pupil can have a lunchbox of her own. But preschool has been compulsory for about three years now. But I read you can homepreschool your kid.
This is one of those cases when you get to see the downsides of the welfare state.
Unfortunately daycare in a private home is out of question because we don't want a full time place for her. Otherwise it would have been the best option. My parents are still helping during the autumn so we only need a part time daycare place. Private home's can't offer that.
I see. That must be because there is a limit to how many kids one private daycare provider is allowed to care for at a time. Am I right? If that's the case what's missing is a market for part-time daycare slots in private homes, then.
Yep. Looking forward getting something like that here.
You got a 25.72% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @momone!