Normally Samson has an English muffin or oatmeal in the morning for breakfast, but he’s gotten tired of both. They weren’t awful for his blood sugar, but occasionally he’d spike to 300 and sometimes he’d go low 30 minutes after he ate, and he very frequently would go low in hour 3 or 4 after the breakfast bolus. (We’ve been working on tweaking our basal, bolus and ISF because we know it’s a problem with our settings, but that’s not really the point of this story.)
Anyways, to manage the manic craziness of getting out the door to school at 7:50 with three kids, we’ve occasionally had to resort to a food I’d consider junk: basically those fancy Clif bars that they make for kids. But the crazy part is that they are so easy to bolus for. He’s basically flat all morning long and doesn’t dip low.
I just think it’s funny because I have such mom guilt giving him such a crummy “processed” breakfast that is technically unhealthy, and yet it’s pretty much perfect for his blood sugar. Croissants are often really easy too. Other foods that are healthier (yogurt, eggs, etc.) are often terrible.
Do y’all have any foods in this category (i.e., technically not healthy but actually really easy to bolus for and leading to a nice flat line)?
Our normal breakfast for Liam is a leggo waffle (with syrup sometimes because he loves syrup like his brothers) + Milk + Flinstone vitamin. Hard boiled egg when he asks for one, or twice per week, but no more than 2 per week.
He also loves bacon and because bacon goes with everything, it’s a snack he gets when he’s hungry along with pepperoni’s…he likes those as well and they’re no carbs and great snacks that he likes. You can buy a big bag of pepperoni pretty cheaply. Healthy? Probably not the best, but since kids are so picky, we give him what he’ll eat.
I would honestly consider a Clif bar healthier than an English muffin. The former has more healthy fats, protein, and fiber, whereas an English muffin is basically all processed carbs (e.g., flour). The latter would spike me unless I timed my insulin exactly right, whereas an energy bar with a decent balance of macros is much easier to target. So I would not feel guilty at all about going for those if it’s working well. I think it depends on what your personal definition of healthy is though.
well the English muffin is a whole wheat english muffin and has nothing but flour, salt oil and baking powder. It’s a “real” food in the sense that I could make a very similar thing in my house if I was motivated. But yeah I mean the definition of healthy is certainly relative. The Clif bar has a lot more ingredients and is more processed. It has a lot of carbs and sugar and not much else. And it has more calories overall, if you’re worried about that I guess.
Maybe look into other bar options? Some have more proteins and fats and also use simpler ingredient lists, that may be more in line with what you want. KIND bars for example have a good balance of macros thanks to all the nuts. They also make mini ones which might be more appropriately sized for a kiddo.
We have been giving banana, berries and whole grain toast with just butter. It seems to work fine for us. We give the lower sugar chobani sachet as a snack and it also seems fine. We swap the berries between blueberries/strawberries/raspberries/blackberries & frozen/fresh. Mostly frozen I suppose. Breakfast is a consistent meal, the others get swapped around. We give milk if she is a bit low and consider it as part of breakfast count
I would LOVE if Samson would eat such a healthy breakfast. he’s become such a restrictive eater that finding a good food that he’ll tolerate is becoming an epic struggle.
And what’s worse in our case is that foods come and go in popularity very rapidly with Liam. One day we think we’ve figured it out and the next day he hates the food he loved just yesterday.
If he already likes Clif bars, do you have time to experiment with similar homemade bars? I’ve seen lots of recipes where you whiz up things like dates, oats, coconut, and almond butter or some other binder, and then roll into balls or press into a baking pan for bars.
How about Cream of Wheat? It’s a lot like oatmeal for me.
You can put a blob of unsweetened applesauce in the middle and sprinkle cinnamon on top. And when you eat it, you don’t mix it up, you just take a bit of the applesauce along with every spoon of Cream of Wheat.
The difference between the sweet, tart, and cold applesauce along with the hot unsweetened Cream of Wheat is a great contrast.
That’s an interesting suggestion. I can try it. He generally dislikes hot foods (he waits till his oatmeal is cold – gross – before eating it), but I could try this.
You might consider grits then. For me a skyrocket food, but your child may be able to tolerate it. Given that it is so bland, almost anything goes with grits (aka polenta when cold). Grits were something we had generally 2 meals a day growing up so we learned quickly how to adorn them to our personal tastes.
My 7 year old is eating apples and peanut butter non-stop with an extended bolus to keep working on the PB through the morning. She can’t seem to get enough peanut butter these days, and it fills her up with minimal gourmet skills required
Kodiak dark chocolate waffles. They seem like a yummy treat (to me too) but they are high fiber and protein and for our son dont spike him. Plus fast and easy. Just rather expensive! My don also has a low carb protein “diet” bar in his lunchbox as well as non processed stuff. They just keep him steady during the school day and are easy to pack/portable etc. no, not ideal but I feel it’s more important to keep him steady in school than what they are. Have tried making many homemade versions only to be told they are disgusting.
