So, with Halloween right around the corner and this really being Liam’s first true “Trick-or-Treat” experience, I’m wondering what other parents have planned for Halloween, for their kids?
My plan is to let him trick-or-treat just like my other sons, and to let him enjoy more candy than usual on that particular day, but then to just save the candy as “low treatments” for the future weeks.
Does anyone have anything special planned or have any special things you do for, or with, your children to help them stay unlimited during this sugar-crazy holiday?
I only had one bad experience from Halloween. My parents gave me extra insulin so I could eat some candy. But all the walking when we went trick-or-treating ended up dropping me really low.
A couple things I to mention.
Do not use glucose tabs! If he needs something, let him pick it out of his candy bag! That is the most important thing. Glucose tabs are not how you treat a low on Halloween!
I know they say chocolate is not good because it takes longer to come in, blah, blah, blah. I promise you, chocolate works fine. If he likes chocolate, let him eat some for a low.
The walking when trick-or-treating will probably drop him some. But that’s ok, he will have a big bag of candy. You can cut basal if you think the drop will be too much to treat, but getting some candy out of the bag and eating it while walking is a cool thing.
Save the candy bolus for when he is done walking. Back when I did it, things were different, you had to plan ahead, so that messed us up a little bit that one time.
On the following days, put those glucose tabs away and use that bag of candy to treat lows. On subsequent days, you can over-bolus meals a little bit because that would give him a chance to get some candy after the meal.
Liam should pick what he wants for lows. It’s his hard-earned stash of candy, so when he has a low, let him pick something. That makes it less like a miserable low, and more like a good thing. Remember Doc’s rule about lows.
our plan is basically the same – we’d never let our other non T1D kid eat all his candy in one go, so we follow the same logic – a few extra treats that night, plus an extra stash of treats for lows.
I think actually bolusing for the candy will be simple because all these treats have pre-defined carb-counts. And I am imagining it will be more of a grazing situation, because he’ll probably be eating and snacking the whole time.
Like I can take a very small bite of a donut or cookie to treat a low, I don’t need to eat the whole thing. And it is absolutely no big deal to just eat a little bit, just take what I need. For many adults, trying to take a small bite of food and leave the rest is difficult.
Halloween can help kids learn that self-control around tasty food. Pacing themselves.
A while ago on a different site, a D complained that their spouse bought ice cream and it wasn’t fair since they couldn’t eat it. I think that is silly. It’s my disease, not my wife’s. She can buy and eat whatever she wants. Complaining that my wife bought ice cream because I couldn’t eat it? I can’t imagine.
I do agree, though. The self control is for everyone, Diabetic or not! Like @TiaG, I never let ANY of my kids eat whatever they want and as much as they want of these things. After trick-or-treat, we let them have 10 pieces each THAT NIGHT, then every other night afterward, 2 pieces each, until it’s gone. The same should hold true for anyone really…moderation is key in any situation.
But the ice cream thing is just silly unless you’re lactose intolerant. Any diabetic CAN have ice cream…it’s just that they have to learn how to to bolus correctly for it. And that just takes testing! Fear keeps people from experiencing most of lifes best things…for diabetics, I think fear prevents them from trying, or eating, some foods.
Re: the idea that everyone should be able to engage in self-control, it’s a good idea in theory, but in practice it’s simply not true. There’s plenty of research out there demonstrating broad individual differences on this. If you can, great. Some people really really cannot, and for many people, the best and most efficient (and recommended) form of self-control is environmental control—not having the thing you are trying to avoid around. For some of us, growing up with highly restrictive diets as diabetics back when meant that we had childhoods when we obliterated our senses of our own hunger and created a sense of urgency around food that’s common in people with restricted access. I imagine that’s less common in diabetic children of today, which is great, and if it’s not your problem, fantastic for you, but to suggest it’s something that everyone should be able to do is problematic, unrealistic, and potentially condescending to the people for whom not having something around or in the house is that person exercising good self-control.
Also, I’m all for teaching good self-control methods to kids—you want to give your child their best shot with it. Hopefully they will be able to internalize that and use that, and it probably increases their chances of being able to do that as an adult. I just would warn against acting like someone who can’t engage in good self-control with tempting food in the house is being unreasonable or failing to do something they have the ability to do.
Very good point and thanks for helping open mind and! This is something I’ve certainly never considered since I have limited exposure. Definitely no ill intent or offense intended! You’re doing amazingly!
I get it. I have zero self control personally. When my wife brings home a big bag of pistachios, Doritos or the like I can and will go through them in one or two nights.
This is totally me for certain foods – I could easily go my whole life never eating a donut, but if I am offered a donut I will eat the whole one. I think foods like Cheetos or potato chips are gross and never crave them, but if I start eating them I feel like I will keep eating on autopilot. I make cookies once a month or so – and if they’re around in the house, I’ll eat a few during the day instead of lunch. I’m really bad at self-control at the critical juncture.
For me, the way I exercise self-control is before I reach the point of temptation. So I cut things into smaller pieces. I make smaller portions. I don’t have the foods lying around. Or, for instance, with tea (which I can’t drink without sugar), I put the sugar up on the highest shelf that requires squeezing a chair into a narrow space in our kitchen, so that my weak self-control is counteracted by my laziness, so one fault cancels another out.
I actually think the pacing of treats on Halloween for the kids isn’t so much to teach them “self control” as it is to create an idea in their mind of what’s normal to eat or habitual to eat. So much of our food choices are really based on subconscious conditioning, comfort and habit. My parents never let me eat junk food routinely as a kid and so I don’t have as many triggers for eating it. To me it’s a special occasion food and my desire for it is triggered only by those special occasions. And my portion sense was set because they had those smaller Corelle plates and that equaled a normal portion --so when I go to the Olive Garden and am confronted with what is essentially three servings of pasta per plate, it seems just totally weird to imagine eating it all. What I’m hoping is to do the same for my kids – reduce how many trashy food triggers they have and calibrate their sense of what a normal portion of food is for different types of foods. So a normal portion of broccoli should take up at least a third of the plate, for instance, while a biscuit shouldn’t be the size of a baby’s head, etc. etc.
You can let him trade you the crap he picks up at all the neighbors houses for treats he likes and won’t wreck his blood sugar. Amongst traditional candies I find regular Hershey’s chocolate, like original Hershey bars and Hershey’s kisses to be really pretty manageable and it’s not as full of all the other incomprehensible indgredients as some of the others
I’m worried for myself… I bought candy to hand out and got into it already. 2 baglets of swedish fish and 2 mini reese’s and a tiny bag of mini oreos (about 60 carbs total) and I was at 300 before the insulin kicked in. Ooof. I’ve been running high and spiking more the last couple weeks… bad time of year for my honeymoon-ish to be ending. I’m actually pretty depressed about this.
We actually found that once the honeymoon ended, real control began and it was easier to accomplish than when things were fluctuating so much. Eating candy is actually pretty easy on the what it takes to control scale.
chocolate does not spike my BG like breakfast ceral (which i do not eat) and most of those mini chocolate bars are around 8g of carbs so I usually just work in a few to my meals.
I have to laugh because as a kid chocolate bars were a no go zone but.all the other fast carbs were on the ok list…
Ha! Wow. Chocolate being off limits would be so sad. I have been eating dark chocolate occasionally; forgot about that. Unfortunately, between celiac disease and no dairy because of my baby, pretty much all chocolate candies are no gos for me.
If he likes chocolate, let him eat some for a low.
Any tips? I haven’t eaten candy (outside of low treatment) in over a year.