should i cancel halloween?

[Mini-Mimi]

hi, as you know, my little girl was diagnosed T1 last monday, i dont know all the medical jargon but at the mo, she's allowed 160g of carbs(?) per day, she has 40 for breakfast, 20 mid morn snack, 40 for dinner, 10 mid afternoon snack, 40 for tea a nd 10 for a supper snack (does that make sense?)
anyway, i usually go all out on halloween for the kids, you name it, i do it, but this year i've sent my son to his dads for the night, and wanted to shut the curtains and just let today pass quietly, i mean, this day is all about sweets, chocolates and kids isnt it?
but then i'm sat here thinking why should i stop doing what i do? i dont want Mia to miss out on ANYTHING, yeah i know she cant gobble chocolate like it's going out of fashion but why should she not have a halloween?
thing is i am still trying to level her blood tests out so what do i do, how much chocolate or sweets can she have? i'm not daft, i'm not gonna ply her with them but surely theres a way around this????
do i cut something out of her tea an replace it with a small bit of choccie?
god theres so much to learn isnt there??????

 

[SophiaW]

There's a lot of excitement at our house right now getting ready for halloween. Our kids have always enjoyed it and we didn't let diabetes get in the way of having fun. I know exactly what your concerns are though because I had the same questions for our first halloween after diagnosis. Coincidentially our first halloweeen was also within just a few weeks of diagnosis.

Tonight Jess has a friend coming around for tea, they'll be having pizza and "watery blood" to drink (low sugar cranberry juice) and I'll probably do a small salad with the pizza too as both girls like their salad. They won't be having a pudding but we'll be going out around the neighbourhood to do some trick or treating. The girls will have a couple of sweets whilst they're going around knocking on doors. The rest they'll bring home and keep as a stash for later. Jess' friend isn't allowed to eat many sweets, her mum is quite strict about that. Jess obviously can't eat too many in one sitting either. We put all Jess' sweets into a jar and they are kept as hypo treatments for when she needs that. I also let her have a sweet for pudding each night with her dinner until they run out, usually a couple of weeks. The sweets tend to be small fun sized portions so one at a time eaten at the end of a healthy meal doesn't cause much problem to her blood sugars *.

With my daughter we explained the new rules before we did halloween. She had a choice, agree with the new rules or we cancel halloween. It was an easy choice for her to make and she seems happy with the arrangement. To be honest I think she gets more fun out of carving pumpkins, decorating the outside of our house with scary things, dishing out sweets to the kids who knock on our door and the dressing up. Eating of the sweets is really only a small part of halloween for us.

edited to add: * Jess' injection is calculated depending on how many carbs she's eating. Your daughter is different in that you have a preset amount of insulin to inject and you try to keep her meals to a certain amount of carbs. I'd be reluctant to take away healthy carbs to replace with unhealthy ones (sweets). Check with your daughter's diabetes nurse first, but I don't see why she can't have a sweet with her normal meal and then you can give some Novorapid to cover the additional sweet on top of her usual meal and injection.

 

[Jen&Khaleb]

I don't think anything should be cancelled because of diabetes. You just have to find new ways of doing things and accept that occassionally the price of fun might be a few higher levels. Sometimes the extra running around that often goes with parties etc actually means that there is no down side to treats and levels stay much the same anyway.

Khaleb has communication problems so if he asks for chips when we are out shopping in the afternoon I always go and get him some. We are the same as SophiaW and on MDI so can always just give a little extra short acting insulin to cover the carbs.

Try to do as many everyday things as you can and make diabetes work in with you and not the other way around. There is always a way!