Does your kiddo have a food allergy/sensitivity?

A few weeks ago I planned on having a fun day with Inara. It was fun...kind of. But throughout the day I gave her a lot of treats thatt she doesn't really ever get- pink lemonade, sprees, gummy bears, and cupcakes. We normally really limit the amount of sweets she has because she just doesn't need that crap. But I thought it would be fun way to treat her on our Mommy/Inara date. Well that evening/night (even most of the next day) she was a little terror. Screaming, yelling, crying, right out nasty and defiant.  On the car ride home I was just so sad! Not that Inara is perfect...but this was not my little girl. In my head I went over the day and what we did. Sure she didn't have a nap...but that has definitely happened before and we have not had that type of behavior for a "no nap day" at this age. Then I realized...pink lemonade-sugar, candy-sugar, gummy bears-sugar, cupcakes-sugar.

DUH! We had noticed before that when she gets really sugary things she gets nasty.  I think what happens is that we just forget she gets mean like that. So when we are at a party and she wants some candy, juice, cookies, or cake we think "Sure, why not. It's not like she gets this every day".

Then a few days ago I was talking to my brother about Inara's nastiness after consuming sugar. He mentioned maybe it wasn't sugar necessarily but a red dye. I thought about it and everything she had that day would have had red dye in it.  And at home we NEVER have red dye. I buy dye free medicine, our yogurt snacks is colored with natural things like fruit.  So the next day I had a experiment. She got a little PEZ dispenser that came with yellow, orange, and red candy. I chose to give her the yellow kind.  She ate the whole pack in like 5 minutes.  She asked for more but I told her no. She actually behaved like normal child...no begging, whining, or crying.

That day she woke up 2 hours earlier that she normally does, didn't have a nap, got spoiled with LOTS of presents, and we had to leave her cousins (favorite people in the world) during a really fun game of wrestling/being crazy with Mawmaw and Pawpaw.  So I was kind of prepared that leaving and bed time would be a disaster...it wasn't! We told her we were leaving, she walked around told everyone good bye, and we left.  My mom even commented about how surprised she was that Inara left so easily and without putting up a fight.  When we got home, we had bedtime snacks and our routine without any arguing, whining, begging, stalling. It was bizarre how well behaved she was being, when I expected the worst.  I am going to experiment some more, but it definitely was an obvious change in her behavior.

I found some other people who have had similar experiences to red dye (and other dyes as well). I also read some articles where the FDA says there is no link between red dye and child behavior or ADHD. Try here, here, here, here, and here.

I remember when Inara was getting my breastmilk  and was having really bad reflux. Someone suggested I try to eliminate dairy from my diet to see if it helped her. All the experts said it takes a while for dairy to enter your milk. Essentially eat dairy now, enters breast milk much later and that is when you baby would be fussy.  At first I really didn't think it would help because no matter when I had dairy she would always be fussy.  But I tried and I was amazed at how much better she seemed to be when I was dairy free. One evening I had a tiny bit of cheese on my salad, pumped right away, gave her a bottle, and she was a mess. Even though all the websites (and doctor and lactation consultant) said that it couldn't be in my milk that fast...I was the one who could obviously see that it was indeed in my milk nearly instantly and affected her right away.  I only bring this up because I there seems to be no concrete evidence either way. I am not saying that if your kiddo is having a tantrum...its a food allergy/sensitivity. I AM saying that I noticed definite differences in my kids behavior when consuming red dye.  It makes me wonder if there are other things out there that affect her.

So what about you. Does your kiddo/you/someone you know have a unusual reaction to dyes or other foods?