*** SNACKS ***

Hi @Garymurday87 I'm a fair bit older and T2 and may not be of much help! But I am on a low carb lifestyle and when I snack it's based around yoghurt, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cheese (lots of options for young one's there), meat (including meat sticks which may be worth a look) and nuts (perhaps not unless you can get them into a paste and dip/spread with something low carb). Early days for your family, I send my best wishes and am sure as you learn it will get easier.

People do talk a lot about low carb here but they are adults and what they do but I do not know how low you should go with a child they have different nutritional needs to adults. It would be better to get the advice from your doctor or nurse . There are other parents with young children who have diabetes on the forum so they can probably give you some tips on what to give as snacks

Garymurday87 said:

myself and my wife now are sturggling for ideas, ideally we dont want to give him more insulin just for a snack if it can be helped ( not carb counting yet )

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Carb counting works by figuring out what your insulin to carb ratio is. You work out, by trial and error, how many grams of carbohydrate 1 unit of insulin will cover and this will give you your insulin to carb ratio. if you knew 1 unit of insulin covered Xg of carbs and you didn't want to have to bolus for snacks, you'd want your snacks to be under Xg of carbs.

But the other thing to bear in mind is blood sugar level and activity at the time of the snacking, if he was 4.2 and mid toddling about like a whirlwind he might be perfectly fine with an unbolused for jammy dodger.

It's pretty easy to find out the carb content of the foods you've mentioned, there will be a per serving carb value on the label. There are lower carb snack foods to consider if you found uncovered snacks were pushing his blood sugar up too much, things like cheese sticks, baby bells, salami sticks, sugar free jelly pots.

The other thing to think about is pumping. I think they are fairly keen on getting little one son pumps quite soon after diagnosis. And then bolusing for a snack would just be pressing a button rather than giving an injection.

Garymurday87 said:

hi all , my 2 year old boy was diagnosed with diabetes on Thursday, we are now into day 2 at home living with this new situation,

at 10.30am and 3.30pm he always has a snack , for example, raisins , a jammy dodger a fuit stick . myself and my wife now are sturggling for ideas, ideally we dont want to give him more insulin just for a snack if it can be helped ( not carb counting yet )

can i have some ideas what would be suitable for a snack, as i a getting different pieces of advice from our NHS

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It depends on his blood sugar. Sometimes Type 1s (young and old) find they need a small snack between meals eg if they're active - that is, a snack without an insulin bolus.

When I was first diagnosed, I had things like a small serving of fruit, a digestive biscuit or two, a glass of milk and a cracker, one or two crackers plus cheese, etc.

Have you and your son seen a dietician yet? For children especially input from a dietician is very helpful as children need enough nutrients for growth and a dietician can help you plan out a good way of eating to make sure the necessary foods are fitted into your son's regime. Sometimes it can work better to spread food over three meals and two or three snacks rather than try to squeeze it into meals only. This is particularly true with children.

Push to have carb counting explained to you asap. Even if your son is currently on fixed doses for meals, it will help hugely.

As you don't want to be injecting insulin or counting carbs for the snack then perhaps a mild cheese, cream cheese in a stick of celery, cubes of melon (not melon balls as a choking hazard) cold sausage cut longways to make sticks, squares of thick cut ham or other meats. Lidl sell huge grapes, so a few of those cut up and the seeds removed could be added - they are not a sweet as the small seedless grapes. You could try a few carrot sticks or even ready made salad, the packs of chopped mixed sweet and crunchy type.
Children do have different nutritional needs - they need proteins and fats for their growing bodies.
I brought up two children on a fairly low carb diet - grapes rather than sweets, few biscuits lots of yoghurts - both are quite a bit taller than me, or their father, slender, intellegent and naturally strong. Lack of sugar kept their first teeth free from decay.

When my 10 year was first diagnosed we were told less than 15g carb snack was ok without a bolus was ok in honeymoon period. I can take a photo of the list the dietician gave us if it helps? She now has a pump and we bolus for all snacks

If thats not clear message me with yr email address and i.ll try that. Good luck

Garymurday87 said:

hi all , my 2 year old boy was diagnosed with diabetes on Thursday, we are now into day 2 at home living with this new situation,

at 10.30am and 3.30pm he always has a snack , for example, raisins , a jammy dodger a fuit stick . myself and my wife now are sturggling for ideas, ideally we dont want to give him more insulin just for a snack if it can be helped ( not carb counting yet )

can i have some ideas what would be suitable for a snack, as i a getting different pieces of advice from our NHS

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I've been diabetic since I was 8. I know it's not the same as being 2 and having snack times but I definitely can empathise with being a child needing sugar free snacks. My mum used to make AMAZING platters. I have cubes of cheese, chicken legs, a range of different meat, LOADS OF VEG, I used to love this. You can cut it into fun shapes etc to keep it exciting. I've also recently taken part in Sarah Wilson's I Quit Sugar so have been getting more familiar with replacements for sweeter things without sugar or artificial sweeteners. If he wants something sweet, coconut is a great way forward. Coconut cream is low in sugar and tastes really sweet. Peanut butter is also good and I now make my own nutella using roasted hazelnuts, coconut oil, coconut cream, cacao and vanilla all blended. Almond and coconut milk are also pretty sugar free- almond milk more so. There's load stuff of options but it doesn't take research! Hope I've started some ideas but let me know if you've got any more questions.

Our daughter was diagnosed 18 months ago so rules may have changed and she's now pumping so we bolus for everything. In the early days she could have 15g free, cereal bars (make sure sugar content is less than half of the carbs) bread sticks, crackers, cheese, rich tea biscuits, ginger nuts. Hope you get on well with carb counting, it's easier than you think - I promise.

Sorry meant to say it does take research- I will add that I'd have carbs at meal times and low carb snacks in between so I wasn't young and going without carbs. My hba1c was always great as a child also.

Hey,
Just wanted to say that be aware that snacking on low carb food between meals could well raise blood sugars still. Protein gets converted to glucose, all be it slower than carbs, so cheese, nuts, meats etc will still raise blood sugars levels unfortunately. No food is a freebie for my 6 year old sadly