Birthday party or carb feast?!?

[Carrie]

Our daughter got invited to her cousin's birthday party last night. Her BG was pretty good yesterday...until after the party! First, they have PIZZA. Then they get their choice of pink or green KOOL AID. The game was guess how many pieces of Huggable CANDIES are in this dish. With the help of her cousin in guessing, my little one won! :rolleyes: Open presents and then it's CAKE and ICE CREAM time! It was a chocolate cake from Walmart with this fluffy (yummy) frosting. I'm not kidding when I say the frosting was at least a half inch thick! My sil plopped this huge piece on my daughter's plate. I just stood there looking at it trying to come up with a carb amount in my head!! Then it just came out of my mouth..."do you know how many carbs are in that piece of cake (like...you're not going to believe how many are in there!!)"?!? One mom was like, "really?!?" Then every time they would go to give my daughter something, they would preface it with, "can she?" I was pushing buttons like crazy on her pump everytime she put something in her mouth. Thought I was aiming high, but she was over 300 at bedtime. :( And guess what her little take-home gift was...a lunch bag, 3/4 full of CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[muddymessalonskee]

I hate it when that happens: at birthday parties, soccer parties, scout award ceremonies, thanksgiving with friends...so frustrating.

Deborah

[selketine]

It does amaze me how much candy is involved in these events. We often end up throwing it away. Even my older (non-D) son doesn't want it.

We are having a birthday party for William at a bowling alley and it comes with pizza and drinks. I guess they have to give you something but really...in the afternoon you don't need pizza - they've already had lunch by this time and it is too early for dinner. We provide the cake. I think kids expect all that stuff now.

[zimbie45]

Thats rough... ONe thing i got in the habit of doing was to talk to charlzie befor the party that we can have cake but we will take most of frosting off, and if theres candy we can have some, but would be better to save it over time.... We have done this since the beginging so we just stuck with it.. and it helps save the whole frustration with b-days.. We also talk about that depending on what is there i may say no to certain things for right then, but can hold them and wait.. NOW charlize will ask for frostign some times, and i will let her have a little bit... she never eat it.. says its tooo sweet now !!! lol

I Also will bring water, kool-aid jammers 10 and/or diet cokes wtih us.. so we dont have to drink very sugar things....

my daughter can be very hyper as it is... so not only does the extra sugars raise her bs.. but it makes her even more hyper now with the "d"... WHEN I SAY HYPER i mean BOING BOING BOING.. she will bounce off every wall

[Ellen]

I would also encourage conversation about good health choices in simple terms for children and praise their healthy choices. They can then internalize and make those choices and realize they feel good about not eating all the #$%^others feel necessary to distribute. That way we don't have to be the bad guy. Of course we also need to set an example and not stuff ourselves with the garbage either. We have an obesity problem and poor nutrition problem in this country. Our children need to be healthy not just because they have diabetes...because we value them as human beings. There are so many cute children's books on fruits and vegetables and things like that....at least there were when my son was young...colorful and precious.

[Carrie]

Oh sure, Ellen...you have to add that comment about stuffing ourselves!! ;) My daughter scarfed all the frosting and ate about half her cake. I couldn't let it go to waste and about tackled my SIL when she went to take it away!! :D Seriously, though...sugar has such such an addictive affect on the body. Pepsi is my "coffee". I find myself craving it. Starting them out young with good eating habits wouldn't be such a bad thing to do. Sometimes I feel guilty...like I'm denying her something, when actually, everyone should be cutting the garbage out of their diets.

[Ellen]

Trust me, I'm not holier than anyone - I'm overweight and back on Weight Watchers for the millionth time, but today feeling great about healthy choices and not feeling deprived. No more closet eating either (did you see that thread?) I was raised with the whole clean your plate philosophy - children were starving in Biafra and the Great Depression was heavy on my parents' minds so nothing was allowed to go to waste.

I've tried to teach my children not to eat when they aren't hungry, it's ok to throw it out etc...which was really hard when Zack was on NPH/R and had to eat based on the insulin given way back when. Luckily he liked to eat what was served. My children have an ability to eat a few cookies and not the whole bag... they feel ok about choices and nothing is forbidden. We do buy a lot of fruit and veggies and they are always accessible at home. The kids like it more when fruit is already cut up in a salad they can easily have a bowl of fruit salad. We have junky stuff in the pantry too (but I'm a nutcase about no hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup).

When we introduce the "forbidden" factor, everything goes to h*** and those forbidden foods take on such high importance.

[Karin]

We've got a birthday party tomorrow, so I've been thinking how to handle all this calmly. I can deal with the frosting and the cake. But the 2 hour continuous goodies that I can't handle! We're not pumping, so I do feel pressure to get my 5 year old to eat what he wants, but all in 15 minutes so I can give him an extra insulin shot to cover. Tomorrows party is at a athletic facility so I'm hoping he can graze a little and cover it with the excercise.

[hold48398]

Wow, that is quite a bit of junk for one party!!! The only candy available to the kids in my house or at a party is chocolate (can you tell I am Swiss :rolleyes:) and an occasional lollipop, and everything is done moderation... Funny enough I let the kids try a sugar-candy at the last Halloween, and sure enough they both spit it out because it was so sweet LOL. They will now bring them to me without my asking and say "here Mom, this is junk!" which I think is pretty awesome at ages 5 1/2 and almost 4 :D.
The kids most certainly are allowed to have cake and pizza at a birthday party - we just make sure that we balance it out with a healthy meal before or after and lots of exercise and activity! Fortunately, my friends see eye-to-eye with me as far as eating/junk food and candy goes, so the birthday parties we go to are generally very manageable and the goody bag rarely contains any candy. By the way, when what age does this whole goody bag business end?? LOL.

I agree that teaching by example is the best way to learn. :)

[hartpukas]

We are just entering into the bday party circuit and so far it has been alright. However there was that one party that I was in S-H-O-C-K what the parents served. Birthday or no birthday it was a mess! Here goes: Drinks came in first, lemonade, fruit punch or diet coke (clearly the diet coke was for the parents), then the pizza and then the thick frosty cake (maybe the same Walmart cake from your description). I was in serious sugar/ carb hell. Who does that to a child - d or no d? Mind you this was a 3 year old bday party (my daughter was just 2 at the time). I just didn't get it and was very frustrated for a few weeks after that over the realization that this is what the future holds. We are on shots and prefer not to start the pump until my daughter is 5 1/2. - so this will get challenging, I am sure.

It is crazy. And the really crazy part was that one of the parents looked at me and said, "Are you giving your daughter Diet Coke?" - granted it was like three sips but what the heck were my options?