Nut allergy and parties/sleepovers

[pollylocketpickedapocket]

Hi my dd is 5 and has an allergy to nuts and peanuts. She does have an epipen and so far reactions have been fairly mild and managed with antihistamine but I believe that could change at any time?
No the subject of parties without me being there have come up and I’m starting to worry about how to manage this, if I give parents her epipen they may be frightened off and she’ll be excluded from things? Any thoughts and ideas of how others have dealt with this will be much appreciated!

She is young to be going to parties and sleepovers without you being there but I do know this is when it starts.

For the first few, you will need to have a conversation with the host in advance so that they are fully aware of your child's allergy. I would request that there be no nuts served at the party and if I couldn't be there and they refused not to have nuts, my son would not be able to go. I used to send a lunch box with alternative food but my son was also intolerant to gluten and dairy so it was complicated. People often wanted to include him so made great efforts to find out what he could and couldn't eat.

And yes, you will need to hand over the EpiPen with instructions. You could also agree to be nearby if you cannot stay at the party.

Along with the other parents of allergy children, we sent a note to the class parents to let people know of our children's allergies. This avoided the problem of kids turning up in the playground in the afternoon with nuts as a snack and then passing them around.

Sleepovers were more tricky and his first sleepovers were with well loved and trusted friends.

Ok thank you. I’m thinking of offering to help out at parties so I can be there and the hosts are happy about it!! It’s a very close knit school and all parents are very friendly with each other.

Hi OP,

My DD was diagnosed with a nut allergy (along with millions of others !) aged two and she has an epi pen.

She's 7 now and having gone to lots of parties and two sleep overs she's fine.

In terms of parties I used to stay, and yes contact the host before hand and offer to bring alternative foods. I have been pleasantly surprised how accommodating people have been

Not to say I'm blasé but I'm far more relaxed about the situation now we are further down the line, DD is brilliant at knowing what she can and can't have and we can't wait to go to pizza express again 🤣

Good luck

Is her allergy triggered from eating nuts or airborne?

@Onceuponatime1818

Is her allergy triggered from eating nuts or airborne?

It’s from eating them. Weirdly her airborne allergy is to garden peas. Coughs and wheezes if they’re cooking for up to an hour afterwards.

I’d also be interested to hear from the point of view of parents whose children don’t have allergies, how they’d deal with hosting.

I would accommodate to your DD and keep everything absolutely separate.
Say if there was a cake with nuts then there would be a little cake without nuts etc.

Not the same as an allergy but my BIL is a Muslim so when we have them round if there is something with pork for dinner/lunch it does not get cooked or get near his food.

I never had to host a child with allergies, as there were none in my kids classes in primary. However the whole school was nut free as there was a child / children in other classes.

They are now in high school and there’s a different pupil with a severe air borne allergy so it’s also nut free.

I have hosted children who were lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant. Each time the parents offered to send lunch boxes. I accepted if it was a sandwich type party tea.

When it was a hot meal I sourced suitable products and checked in advance with the parent that it was ok. I felt it was unfair for the child to have sandwiches when everyone else had eg chicken nuggets, pizza and ice cream.

None of the other children at the party batted an eyelid because they were all in the same class to completely used to it.

I don’t know how I’d feel about being asked to use an epipen when I’m not trained. I suspect I’d ask the parent if they would like to stay and be a party helper, if they were happy to do that.

I’d never dream of excluding the child and would work the other parent to find a solution we were both happy with.

At what age do children start to use the pen themselves ? I know that children with type 1 diabetes do this from quite young.

I forgot to say that if I had a guest with an allergy I’d be happy to exclude that food from the entire menu. But I mean allergy and not intolerance.

I’ve never had a parent request special party food for preferences, although I’ve read about it on MN. I think these kind of parents make it harder for parents whose child has an allergy / intolerance.

I had some guests with allergies for DD's parties. I normally know about it already, there are no real secrets like that in primary school so I often went and talked to the parents/made a note on the invite to contact me to check what can be done.

In general, when I had a guest with it, I bought food instead of making it myself and got the ok from the parent. No child complained about a gluten free cake I got instead of a normal one.

Dairy I found more difficult, that stuff is in everything, so the mum sent over the sandwiches and told me brands to buy for snacks. The increase in vegan food helps a lot now.

I organise staff events at work which include food and with gluten free and nut allergy colleagues I got quite good in reading labels.

Often the parent in question stayed and helped a lot longer than other parents but from 7/8 the children do get a bit sensitive that "mummy" is always there to help and watch. By then most children I know have a good grip on their allergies.

I used to host parties with a girl with a serious nut allergy. I would take all the crisps, cake etc out of packages and keep the packaging. The mum would come in and go through it and tell her dd what was good. One thing we always did was to buy bread for the sandwiches in packets, rather than at the bakery counter, to reduce risk.

Sounds a hassle, but it was fine. All the mums in our class did the same.

@HowsYourHeadHun.. if my 5 year old allergy child was going to a party where the main cake had nuts in it, I would be anxious about the risks. It would be easier to have a nut free cake.

[quote ChateauMargaux]@HowsYourHeadHun.. if my 5 year old allergy child was going to a party where the main cake had nuts in it, I would be anxious about the risks. It would be easier to have a nut free cake.[/quote]
Fair enough.

@pollylocketpickedapocket

I’d also be interested to hear from the point of view of parents whose children don’t have allergies, how they’d deal with hosting.

When I hosted Parties and was told about nut allergies I made sure everything was nut fee and I kept the wrappers of stuff in case the parent wanted to check. With dairy, everyone had their own lunch box for the party tea and I made sure that they were each tailored to the child's dietary needs (none were severe dairy allergies) and the birthday cake was dairy free.