Trick or Treat with Peanut Allergy Toddler?

My son also has a less-severe nut allergy. We go trick or treating, but they are not allowed to eat anything until we get home. He, too, knows and somewhat understands his allergy so when i take the peanut butter items or peanut m&ms, he understands why I have done so. Like the other mom said, though, they don't eat nearly what they collect because they only get a few pieces a day and typically forget in a week. I think that as long as he's ok with touching those items, he should be fine. Have a great time and be safe! Happy Halloween!

I heard that US Karate is willing to pay $1.00 lb. of candy. Plus, they get a free lessons in Karate and uniform. The candy collected will go over Seas to our service men and women.

I think kids just get a big kick out of going door to door seeing what they get. How healthy is it to allow them to eat all they no mstter if they have allergies or not. - While I go try to wrestle my son's 200 lb bag of candy from him, say a pray for me!

Take care
J.

D. - this year I didn't feel safe at all w/ToT for my 2 1/2 yr old (ana to contact/ingestion of dairy, seafood, shellfish, and allergic to palm oil, strawberry, grass, pollen, etc.), so we did a halloween party at home. We went to the dollar store and bought table cloth, plates, napkins, etc - as well as non-candy treats for their pumkin buckets (my sons are almost 7 and 4). We let them dress up and watch Halloween movies, then Daddy hid their filled pumpkins and they got to go find them. We served bloody brains with eyeballs, bones, and goblin blood (spaghetti and meatballs, breadsticks, and gatorade) for dinner by candlelight, then they got one more movie before bed while they got a few pieces of safe candy to eat. It's all they could talk about in church this morning!

Right there with you, another Allergy-Mama here.

Our 7-year old brings along a sack. Walks up to the door and holds the sack open and in this area, usually the person at the door just drops in the treat into the bags of each kid.

If he is asked to "pick something" he can look to see if there is something he knows is safe and select that. Otherwise, his sister will "help him" by placing a chocolate bar or whatever in his sack. She knows NOT to select anything with peanuts, his most severe allergy. So, she usually grabs a lolly or mini bar of something peanut free. She is 9 and can read brands well.

He never actually eats 99% of what he collects, as his allergies are pretty pronounced. Like your family, he trades in his loot for $ or Legos, which he much prefers to the few candies he can eat anyway. So, he gets to go along, running house to house, collecting candy- which is the most fun part- and then he doesn't care about what happens to that stuff when he gets home.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!

I never really thought about that side of the problem before. We try to have a nut free option for kids coming to our house (friends of ours have peanut allergies. Obviously you can't get everyone to get nut-free items. This year we had a bowl of candy and a bowl of toys (bracelets, spider rings, balls, puzzles).

Something we did to cope with a food allergy (mine) is we started doing the Halloween Fairy. The kids left their candy by the back door and in the morning, the fairy would have come and she turned their candy in to toys! It was so fun for them and less sugar for the kids. They get to keep TWO pieces, only.

Curious mom here. I bought a bag of mixed candy and found almond Joy's in it. I took them all out so the kids wouldn't take any by accident but I was really curious if having the Almond Joys in the bag would be a risk to the other treats the kids picked from. Obviously they are all wrapped but could contamination have occured in some other way?

I know it's past Halloween now, but for next year...don't worry about him touching the candy. it's all individually wrapped so it's fine. I go up to the doors with my kids and I hear my 4 and 6 year olds ask if they can have a piece with no peanuts because my Mommys allergic. We still get quite a few Snickers so I just drop them off at a friends house...and hope they can trade for Milky Ways!

I did not do this, but will NEXT year, my little guy has allergies too. We will leave his unsafe candy on the porch for the Great Pumpkin who will bring a small toy or movie instead.

I thought of taking safe treats to the neighbors to give him, but then with so many kids dressed alike I figured the ones that did not recognize us easily may not realize to give him the safe treat. We just let him accept what was given, and took it away. My older kids were good about trading his unsafe stuff for things he could have from their bags.

But if you are concerned about him reacting to a wrapper or something he touches, then you will have to come up with another plan. We are not allergic to the peanuts, but milk, and he is contact reactive to it. He did have gloves on and we did immediately take all unsafe treats away, but you never know what will cause a reaction.

My four-year-old has the same allergies as yours ( minus soy, plus wheat and barley). This is the first year he has really been into the trick-or-treating excitement. He went and collected candy and knows not to eat things until he returns home and we can see what he can have. Luckily he always asks if he's allergic to new things before he tries to eat. He accepts whatever people hand out so he's in on the fun like everybody else, and if they let him pick, we try to find something that we know he can eat. When we get home, we go through and sort and make his pile of things he can eat and he can have that in limited amounts. He has never had any problems having reactions from things being wrapped, and he is one that has reactions from things getting on his skin, not just ingesting.