Top Tips for Minimising Fussy Eating

It’s a cliché about small children that they don’t eat properly.  People are constantly swapping stories about their irritation with the faddy food habits of their offspring – that is when they are not secretly sobbing over platefuls of uneaten carrots and bowls of rejected spaghetti bolognese.  Few things cause as much stress to parents as feeding their children; it’s one of those things which is fundamental to the idea of nurturing them.  If they don’t eat, you can feel you are failing at one of the most important parts of your job.  And that’s before you factor in the frustration and anger at food going to waste, not just because you’ve spent ages cooking it but because you know there are children elsewhere dying for want of a decent meal.  Fussy eating makes taking your children out to dinner difficult, it causes issues at large family meals, and it makes it harder for you when children are invited out to tea.

I think people treat fussy eating as though it’s inevitable, as though it’s something over which you cannot take control.  But for most children this is not the case.  The vast majority of children will go through periods of comparative fussiness, yes, and only exceptional children will eat literally everything you put in front of them, but there is no reason why most children cannot eat a wide variety of interesting and healthy foods.  And most importantly your dining table doesn’t need to be a battle ground. Promise.

There are a couple of exceptions to this for whom managing food intake may be more difficult.  One is the highly allergic child.  Here you may run into difficulties because their food options are limited to begin with, and also because when food starts making a child ill it’s easy for them to develop fear about food and eating.  The other is the child with sensory processing difficulties, either as part of or independent from autism.  For children with genuine (and I stress that, genuine) sensory needs, you can acclimatise them to different foodstuffs but it must be done slowly and carefully.  It’s also worth saying that you do need to introduce texture into food for all children fairly early on to avoid any sensory sensitivities developing unnecessarily in children that might be prone to it.

So with that out of the way, let’s get onto my list of tips.  Every single one of these has worked/does work in our house.  I cannot promise that they will in yours, because all children are different, but I have three, all good eaters, all of whom love food, love mealtimes and love going out to eat.  They have all had fussy phases, those you cannot avoid, but they do not need to be permanent.  I apologise that these may not be in a logical order.

1. At the start, offer variety of taste, texture and presentation. Right from the start, go for variety.  It may take a little time to introduce new foods as they get used to eating at the weaning stage, but once you have a good number of things on the go, rotate foods regularly and keep adding new ones.  I used to try and offer lentils, pork, beef, chicken, lamb, and two portions of fish on a main-meal rotation through a week, alongside two vegetables each time, again on rotation. Eventually you can get to the point where they don’t bat an eyelid at new foods because every day looks different.

2. Never offer alternatives.  Or, if you must, make them boring and small. Children are smart.  If they think there is a sniff of a chance that they’ll get something else they will turn down the first thing you offer.  It appeals to them on two counts – one because they get to have something else they might prefer, and two because small children like control, and you dancing to their tune is both exciting and hilarious.  I never offer alternatives.  In my experience most meals are rejected because they are not all that hungry in the first place.  But if you are certain they genuinely don’t like it and are really hungry, make the alternative something extremely dull, like a slice of plain toast.  That way you don’t have to worry you are putting them to bed hungry, but they also don’t get the impression you are a short-order cook.

3. Feed your first child like you already have two more.  If you had three children at the table who refused to eat a meal, would you cook them each a different alternative? As a family of five, would you dish up a separate meal for everyone in the household? Treat the first child as if it’s one of many; don’t let them dictate too much.  It may be their choice to eat it or not but it’s your choice what you cook.

4.  Feed them what you eat. Cook for yourselves in the evening and offer up the rest for the children the next day.  Apart from watching the salt content and maybe going easy on the chilli for some children (you can always season your own with chilli flakes after removing their portion) there is no reason why children can’t eat what you eat.  The bonus is you are only cooking once, and it hurts less if it gets rejected!

5. If you offer a choice, make it between two things, no more.  A or B.  X or Y.  Small children are confused by excessive choice.  If you like to offer alternatives keep it simple: “Would you like chilli or toad in the hole for lunch?” You may find the answer is sometimes “None of them!”  Do not accept this, or you will end up offering an endless parade of options and losing control of the situation.  If they reject both, just say you will choose for them.  You will usually find they suddenly develop a preference for one or the other.

6. Be firm but don’t fight.  Never argue over food.  State your case and move on.  You CANNOT and SHOULD NOT make a child eat. But you are in charge of what goes onto the table.  Don’t lecture, nag or repeatedly comment on what they are and are not eating.  Simply make your point and then leave it alone. “There is nothing else on offer, so either eat some of that or get down from the table”.

7. Don’t give up on foods if they are refused. I continued to put broccoli on my (now 6 year old) daughter’s plate for two years after she rejected it at 18 months.  She rarely, if ever ate it, but I never commented.  After two years she announced she now liked broccoli again and now eats it all the time.  Don’t cut foods out of their repertoire just because they stop eating them; their tastes change all the time and if you don’t make a big deal of it they will probably go back to eating it eventually.  Hopefully within less than two years!

8. Don’t get angry or annoyed if they don’t eat.  This is really important.  Don’t turn it into a battle, and even if you do feel  extraordinary waves of anger watching them refuse the fish stew you spent hours making and hard-earned money paying for, don’t let it show.  The minute a child knows you have a button that can be pressed, they will press it.

9. Don’t be stressed if they don’t eat. In my experience, there are phases in a child’s life when they eat very little, for reasons which are not entirely clear.  It may be related to after a growth spurt, but I have had weeks where it appears barely any food has gone down, with no ill-effects.  Showing no reaction to this (apart from giving smaller portions if they are eating less than usual to avoid waste) has resulted in normal habits being resumed in a week or so.  If there is no sign of illness, don’t go into panic mode and start offering alternatives to coax them to eat.  Trust them to manage their own intake.  If you are really concerned, offer a favourite meal every couple of days, but don’t offer treats to fill the gaps.  I have lost count of the times I put mine to bed without any tea to speak of.  It was never an issue, probably because the reason they weren’t eating is because they weren’t really hungry!

10. Go back to the normal rules after an illness.  Rules do go out of the way when a child is ill.  If they are unwell and don’t feel like eating, sometimes it’s best not to push food on them as it can come straight back.  But you need to keep them taking in a few calories, so offer whatever they want (within reason).  But I have lost count of the number of times I have heard people say that fussy eating developed after the first illness their child had.  You must return to your normal rules as soon as they are well.  There may well be fuss that you are not going to let them sit on a sofa and eat ice-cream all afternoon, but you have to ride that out.

11. If tantrums ensue.  Say “well, that’s what we have to eat today.  You can choose to eat it or get down from the table.”  Keep it simple, don’t shout, say it calmly and follow through. If they are younger, simplify the language but keep the message the same.

12. Don’t punish a child for not eating. Punish rudeness at the table if it happens, or misbehaviour, but do not punish the specific act of refusing to eat.  It is a child’s right not to eat what you put in front of them.  They have the choice to eat or get down from the table, but you have to let them have that choice.

13. Use positive language. Be positive about eating, about food, about mealtimes, about cooking.

14. Never validate dislikes – at least not until they are older. Say “Oh, you don’t want that today”, not “Oh, you don’t like that.”  The latter will just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

15. If offering something new and different, always make sure there is at least one thing on the plate you know they will eat.  Think how you would feel if someone gave you a plate of a completely unknown food with nothing familiar in sight.  Where would you start with it? If you were really hungry, how frustrated would you feel?  If you’re offering a new main meal or a new sandwich filling, put familiar vegetables or well-liked fruits on the side.  Give them the opportunity to try the new food without feeling under pressure.

16. Be relaxed, and don’t hover. If you are relaxed about mealtimes, you child is far more likely to follow suit.  Don’t put pressure on them by hovering over them as they eat either.  It’s lovely to sit with children and chat, but for some children it just encourages them to kick off, either because they feel like you are watching them or because you are then a target to annoy.  Stay in the same room for safety purposes, but look busy. The less you look like you care what they eat, the more likely they are to eat it.

17. Keep snacks not less than two hours before a meal.  Children who are not hungry find reasons to fuss.  Children who are hungry find reasons to eat. If you find they are regularly not eating at lunchtime and teatime, cut snacks completely.

18.  Don’t attempt to feed very tired or very hungry children (if you can help it!).  This will usually just lead to tantrums.  In my experience children who are extremely hungry actually often struggle to start to eat – for some reason they get to the point where they can’t pick up a spoon and get on.  It can actually work in these circumstances to offer a guaranteed win to get them to start eating before they will be able move on to their actual meal.

19. Make rules and stick to them.  If you think they should eat at the table, they will eat at the table. Just say they eat at the table or not at all. Stand your ground. If it matters to you, don’t give in.

20. If you have a fussy eater, give smaller portions so there is less waste.  Waste is what makes parents cross.  If they don’t eat a lot, give smaller portions and freeze the rest.  Children with small appetites are put off by large platefuls of food, too.  You can always offer seconds.

21. Have pudding rules and stick to them. Ours are quite simple, and based on the fact that on any given day I don’t know how hungry they are.  Yoghurts and fruit are allowed for pudding if at least 3/4 of a meal has been attempted, including most of the vegetables. Cakes, special puddings, stuff that we buy from the patisserie counter on a Saturday – these require a clean plate.

22. Remember that babies and toddlers need to taste something up to 10 times to become familiar with it. Don’t give up too soon.  And some research shows that even very tiny amounts count towards acclimitisation.  One small bite of broccoli is nonetheless effective in terms of getting them used to it.

A lot of this sounds more authoritarian than it is in practice.  In reality, setting basic ground rules for mealtimes means you don’t have fights and arguments because they know what is expected and just do it.  As to a rationale, I always go back to thinking about children on rationed food during the Second World War.  These children had fairly horrible, bland, limited meals.  But they would have been hungry and they ate it. In a world where millions of people are literally starving, it is ridiculous for a normal, healthy child to be able to make excessive demands about food. They are incredibly lucky these days to have foods available that even two generations ago would have been unthinkable.  I am repeating myself again but the philosophy should be that you choose what goes on the table, they choose whether to eat it. Never fight, never argue, never punish, just offer up plenty of healthy variety and let them make their choices.

I hope this is a useful list of tips and tricks; I have found them very effective.  If you have any others, why not add them below?

The Childhood Obesity Crisis: Is Fat Shaming the Answer?

The other day a friend was quite rightly in tears over a letter that had been sent home from school. It said that after a recent health check, her daughter had been found to have entered the ‘overweight’ category for BMI. By 900 grams. No other help or information was offered in this letter.

Another friend heard a mum on the school run, take a letter from her little boy and say ‘oh what’s that? A letter to say you’re a fatty?’

There is an obesity crisis in Britain, we get it hammered into our brains at every turn. And it is certainly true that obesity in children is a serious issue that needs addressing. But is sending home shaming letters the answer? In my opinion, no. I am a person who struggles with my weight and have suffered from various eating disorders in my teens, so I feel I have a modicum of insight about what needs to happen to tackle this problem. Fat shaming leads to nothing but a surge in eating disorders, and a continuance of the obesity crisis. Young children are incredibly vulnerable to criticism and humiliation. There surely must be another way?

Firstly we need to look at who is to blame.

1. The parents.

Children don’t mysteriously become overweight by themselves. They don’t go shopping or cook, so the blame cannot be laid with them. Parents have a very serious responsibility. Just as we teach our children to cross the road safely, the same importance should be placed on teaching them how to eat properly. Some parents are the products of generations of disadvantage, lack of education and hardship, resulting in them passing on this lack of awareness to their own offspring. Others might be extremely busy, getting home from work too late to do anything else but grab convenience food. These things are extremely entrenched and difficult to overcome, especially with no help.

2. Social problems.

As mentioned above, many families are in a position of disadvantage. They have low incomes, lack of education, lack of appropriate support and have no idea about how to eat properly. I live in an area such as this. A large cheesy chips is £1.80 at my local chippy. A McDonald’s Happy Meal is £2.49. When you only have a pound or two, and no awareness of a better option, then this is the option chosen time after time.

3. Lack of exercise.

When we were kids, we were out and about, riding our bikes, running around in the garden, being physically active. We didn’t have the sheer volume of technology at our disposal, so TV would get boring and we’d head outside. Today we have entertainment at our fingertips. Children have an infinite number of TV channels, computer games and apps on tablets and mobile phones. Children are often living in environments where it’s not as safe to be out playing or riding bikes. Many community play areas have been closed. Thousands of acres of green fields have been built on by housing companies. Sports have to be paid for, a visit to the swimming pool is often beyond the capability of a low income family.

4. Supermarkets promoting junk food.

 

Walk into any supermarket and you are bombarded with junk food. They put it by the door, on the ends of aisles, everywhere that’s its easily seen and ‘grabable’. The manufacturers pay for this to happen. Their food is promoted above anything else. Usually accompanied by an offer, Buy 1 get 1 Free! Packaged in a way that’s vastly appealing to children. Who hasn’t had ‘Mummy I want one of those!’ during the weekly shop? Fruits and vegetables are not given the same supermarket treatment.

5. Society’s negative focus.

Being fat is bad, skinny is good, it doesn’t matter how you get there. Be Beach Body Ready! Lose 10lb in 10 days! Being chubby equals lazy, ugly, stupid. Our children see these statements screamed at them from magazines, newspapers, the internet. They are brainwashed. And they believe it. Scrutinising their bodies at such a young age leads to poor self esteem, which in turn can lead to eating disorders.

Doesn’t it seem ludicrous that the government think this can be solved by sending home a letter such as the one mentioned at the beginning of this blog! That they, and many people, think the obesity crisis can be solved by telling children they are overweight!

Many things need to happen, some of which are:

1. Proper, extensive help for families.

The entire family unit needs to be taught how to cook cheap, tasty and healthy meals from scratch. This isn’t easy if you have no idea, but I know of several people including myself, who have taught themselves to cook for the sake of their children. To do this education is needed. Children need to have lessons at school, showing them the types of food available, what they taste like, how they are used, how they are grown. Lessons also could be given to parents, on how to cook, the benefits of eating well, how to shop effectively. Low income families could be given recipies that cost less per person than a bag of chips. Jamie Oliver had a programme last year which claimed to show us how to cook on a budget. Unfortunately he was on another planet to those of us on low incomes, suggesting buying joints of beef for £12. Now while this made many meals, and worked out to be cost effective, he didn’t take into account the fact that poor families don’t have £12 all at once to spend on beef. So realistic costings need to be done.

He greatly redeemed himself though by starting Jamie’s Food Revolution. Which is a campaign to put compulsory practical food education on the school curriculum. This is the type of effort that has the best chance of turning the tide of the childhood obesity crisis. For more information see his website http://www.foodrevolutionday.com

2. Accuracy from the government.

I was appalled to see the Change 4 Life leaflet, currently being given out by the government by Health Visitors and Health Professionals, about healthy foods for children. It advised swapping full fat milk, cheese and yoghurt, for low fat. Nutritionally there is no reason to do this! These things have a very important place in a balanced diet for children. Low fat, and diet food often have more sugar and additives and are much worse for children. The government should be encouraging a cleaner, balanced diet that includes as much full fat, unprocessed food as possible, alongside brown carbs, meat and lots of fruit and veggies. If the official line on healthy eating is flawed, then how on earth are parents supposed to interpret what is actually correct!

More money should be poured into vouchers for free swimming or exercise opportunities instead of these inaccurate leaflets!

3. A focus on being healthy and active, for ourselves and our children.

There are many ways we can be active as a family for free:

Bike riding – bikes can be acquired very cheaply from second hand pages, also worth watching Freecycle in your area in case any free ones come up.

Walking – needn’t be boring! We geocache as a family (rock and roll!), which makes an outdoor ramble extra exciting. Download the app from https://www.geocaching.com/play

Ball games in the garden or park.

Dancing! Put on some music and get grooving!

Building these activities into our lifestyle will be setting our children up for a lifetime of activity, which in turn will keep them strong and healthy.

4. Changing our own warped view of body image

Instead of the focus being on skinny celebrity bodies, we need to celebrate all body types. We are all different; short, tall, thin, curvy, muscular, the list goes on. The most important thing is that we are active and as healthy as we can be. We as adults need to get this message into our heads, and pass it to our kids. If we are still dreaming of the unachievable, dieting to excess, bingeing, down on our bodies at every turn, then this is what we’ll pass to our children. They aren’t stupid. If they see us saying ‘it doesn’t matter what you look like’, and then refusing food, or crying in front of the mirror, they will see what we truly believe. Labeling foods as ‘bad’ will only lead to fixation on those forbidden foods. Instead why not explain how certain foods are for ‘sometimes’ and other foods for ‘every day’. This is a simpler way of showing children why a diet of crisps isn’t ideal, but without the guilt and the wrong message that ‘this food is bad’ brings. Its perfectly fine to enjoy McDonalds, crisps, cake and sweets occassionally as part of an otherwise balanced diet.

Some of us grew up with the rule ‘clear your plate’. This has been a major cause of eating problems in later life. No one should have to force food down. We need to re-engage our stomach’s messages to our brain. When we feel full, we should stop eating, even if some food is left. I truly believe if we can teach this to our children, it will be setting them up for a lifetime of sensible eating and portion control.

Limit the amount of photoshopped images your children see in magazines, on TV and the Internet. Have ongoing discussions about how these images aren’t real. Encourage them to appreciate people for different characteristics; strength, sporting ability, kindness, intelligence, humour etc. Again, they will learn better by example, seeing you look beyond the exterior.

I’ve only touched on a few ways in which we can help rear healthy and strong children. And I understand my suggestions are simplistic and idealistic, but surely less so than sending a single letter home and expecting change. If you find yourself with one of the letters mentioned, then you can do one of two things. Get upset, or chuck it in the bin and focus on some of the above points. I know which one I’ll be doing…

“I shouldn’t complain but…” – Living with a chronically ill child

[written by EB]

As you might be aware this blog is the sum of several lovely ladies blogging.  I will own up that I am the individual behind the sleep-deprivation-induced typo “sleep decoration” which has stuck with our group as a little in joke and which we now invite you to join in with and understand.

Sleep decoration is that particular sleep-deprived state where exhaustion has snuck into your core, into your bones.  When you are so tired that your eyes sting and you silently curse any one that knows the wonder of a full night’s sleep. Sleep decoration is that fuzzy world that many parents inhabit:  bumbling through everyday life, trying to function, work and care for our children.

I am sleep decorated.  Extremely sleep decorated.  This is due to fact that my wonderful and energetic 16 month old son suffers from complicated food allergies and intolerances which cause chronic colitis and inflammation in his bowels.  Most nights he is simply in far too much pain to sleep properly.  This is not his fault, it’s not my fault  it’s not my husband’s fault (despite my feelings at 3am when I am peeling myself out of bed for the third time and he is still soundly sleeping); this is just how our life is. When I talk to others about my son’s allergies people often underestimate the impact that they have on our lives.  Apart from being ghastly pale and occasionally sporting ‘allergy shiners’ (dark sunken circles under his eyes) he looks physically well and certainly has enough energy to run circles around me – so why would people believe our life can be difficult?

Some days are okay, in fact some days are brilliant and symptom free,  but then then I have some days where I am unable to comfort my son, when he is so much distress that he pleads with me with desperately sad eyes to ease his pain, to help him understand why he hurts so much.  Days where we find blood in places it shouldn’t be and he thrashes against my arms as he just doesn’t know what else to do with himself.  Whilst heart breaking and difficult this is we medicate where we can (he can’t always tolerate medicine) and keep him distracted and busy where possible.  Nights are where things become really difficult.  There is little to distract him from his pain and he desperately wants to sleep most of the time but is unable to due to the extreme discomfort.  He can be awake and in pain for hours at a time or just wake frequently, crying out, requiring comfort and reassurance to get back to sleep.

On top of this we have the impact of a restricted diet for a hungry growing boy.  My son is on the 99^th percentile for height and never stops, never sits still, which means he is constantly requiring food.  He can only tolerate five safe ingredients, all of which are low fat,  so we struggle to get enough calories into him during the day to sustain the night. The poor sleep is therefore worse as he also requires milk during the night.  When symptom-free this is a quick and easy affair but when experiencing a flare up this can be just another wake up with crying, writhing around and distress.  I think unless you have been in this situation it’s so hard to describe the heartache of holding your child, being unable to comfort them.

You look at medical literature describing allergies and you will read about skin irritations, bowel issues, distended stomachs, vomiting  and sometimes there may be a throw away comment about disturbed sleep.  All these symptoms are concerning, and obviously distressing for the families involved, but in my experience (current and past) disturbed sleep is the one that impacts on your ability to cope with all the other horrific symptoms.

I am a fan of routine, structure – and sleep!  We have always followed a routine for my older daughter and this helped us diagnose her intolerance to cow’s milk as she was equally unsettled until we eliminated it from her diet.  But what happens when you have eliminated all that you can and even hypoallergenic formula seems to cause pain and distress?  The feeling of helplessness as a parent at this juncture is just indescribable and then when you add it to the fact that your brain won’t function properly due to the sleep deprivation, life is too dark and murky to see the next steps.  I’ve been told so many times, “you can cope with anything when you have sleep”, but what happens when you have to cope with everything, and sleep is the one thing you can’t have?

Sleep deprivation, in the dark corners of the world, was and is used as a form of torture, used to break someone’s will.  But here and now parents of chronically ill children are subject to the same treatment by these nonetheless desperately wanted and loved children.  I’m not going to lie to you, some days I want to run away and hide (especially on food trial days when I know we are likely to have days, if not weeks, of awful nights followed by challenging days).  Some days I’m close to tears, taken hostage by exhaustion.  Most days, and this is getting more and more frequent now my son is receiving the best possible care, I pull positivity from strength I did not know I possessed, I get through the day and take each challenge one small bite at a time.

I am lucky: I have an amazing husband, fantastic family and a great support network of real life and virtual friends. I have also accepted that life has had to change and I am currently making adjustments to accommodate my hazy and bumbling state.  If you too are struggling to maintain any semblance of a normal life whilst caring for a high needs baby, here are some things I thought I could share that might help.

1. The obvious stuff (that we don’t always do)

Take help where you can, heck, take sleep where you can!  Lean on willing family and friends who probably feel helpless;  they most likely don’t know how to help so tell them!  Allow them to take other children out for the day, allow them to baby sit while you take a nap -whatever they can reasonably do to help, let them.  Get to bed early when you can and try to lie in (my husband takes the children downstairs on a weekend and I grab an extra hour or so).  Do whatever you can to survive and get through but know you don’t have to do it by yourself.

2. New connections

My son’s allergies are fairly all consuming.  Being a parent to two young children can be tiring enough but when you add in hospital appointments, chasing prescriptions, planning food trails, doing my own research – it doesn’t really leave much left in the energy bank for a social life.  Evenings I’m too exhausted to do much and I am often required to comfort or feed my son any way.   But, connections to others are important – for your sanity and for your self-identity – yes, you are a parent but you are still you too.  I go through phases of accepting that my social life has changed beyond all recognition (I can’t eat or drink normally due to breastfeeding and making sure my son can tolerate my breast milk) so I have had to make changes.  For example, I make plans to see friends during the day at weekends, sometimes with the children, sometimes leaving them with my husband and escaping for a few hours.  I missed my evening sewing class that I used to attend after work so I have invited friends to sew one evening a month at my house and we are learning from each other, meaning I am on hand to feed/settle/comfort baby boy whenever needed.  I have stopped hoping for a night away with the girls (something I used to do four times a year) for the immediate future and we currently trying to figure out some date nights in the house for me and my husband.  We have attempted a few date nights out but sadly the grandparents have struggled to settle my son when he wakes so we are called back and our nights are cut short.  This is okay: it’s just a matter of being creative with our relationship and looking for new connections.  When you have a baby you accept that life will take a while to settle back down, but when you have an chronically ill baby this period is extended indefinitely, something that friends or family sometimes need a gentle reminder about. It is possible to work around it though and, if it’s explained to them, people do understand.

3. Acknowledge your feelings

As a parent one thing that I have really struggled with is those feelings that bubble up in the middle of the night, after months and months of broken sleep how you deal with that little niggle of resentment that you are not allowed to talk about, not allowed to acknowledge.  Here is this little beautiful creature, who is your absolute world, who is robbing your ability to function!  Even now typing this I feel  like I am admitting something dreadful.  He’s the one in pain, it’s his stomach that bleeds not mine.  And here I am complaining about being tired…. What an awful mum I must be! In fact, I’m not awful, I’m human and humans need sleep!

It has taken me a long time to accept that some days I will be functioning on a three hours of broken sleep, that some days I have to bite my tongue when someone complains of a bad night’s sleep, to let go of that feeling of jealousy when my husband spends three nights away in a quiet, dark, comfy hotel room for work.  I do go through periods of being incredibly emotional and where I struggle to cope, I’m not superhuman after all, but I lean of my family and friends and on online support forums.  This isn’t something that has come naturally or easily to me – I have had to make a conscious and mindful effort to be truthful with the people closest to me.  I go to work four days a week where I have to (try to!) be professional and competent, something that is not always easy when you’ve had a few hours of broken sleep, but I wear my smile as part of my work uniform and try be positive.  What I have learnt over the last year and a half is that this is okay,  it’s a social requisite to respond “fine” when asked how you are, but your friends, your true friends, want to know how you are really feeling . That release is not an acknowledgement of weakness, it doesn’t mean you are not coping, it doesn’t mean that you are blaming your child or loving them any less, it simply means that sometimes the burden of responsibility is too heavy for your shoulders alone at that particular time.  Whatever you need to do to release some of the stress and emotion that inevitably builds up from battling each day with allergies and intolerances, be it cry, laugh, have a pint down the pub – do it, and don’t make any apologies for it.

When we stayed in hospital on the children’s ward we saw many critically ill children and every day I remember them and I count my blessings that no matter how difficult day to day life can be it could be a lot worse.  Many people have said, “at least he is well”, and yes, he’s developing incredibly well, growing and he’s an amazing little character, no-one should ever doubt that we know how lucky we are to have two beautiful children.  This leads me back to my title: yes we are fortunate in so many ways and I really shouldn’t complain. BUT sometimes acknowledging that life isn’t particularly easy is healthy and helps me to cope.   I’ve only just started to give myself permission to do this and I hope if you are the parent to a child with allergies, or know one, you give yourself or them permission sometimes to break that uniform smile and acknowledge out loud that it is hard.

It’s not always easy but we will always dust ourselves off and carry on – we have absolutely no other choice – but that little release, that little bit of support, will go a long way in helping us to do so.