Does you cook with wine for your toddler?

[missladybird]

Slightly panicking about dd having beef gravy with red wine yesterday. I have bad anxiety and alcohol is a massive trigger due to my childhood and living with an alcoholic. I would never ever serve food cooked in wine but didn't realise yesterday until it was too late.

Am I overreacting or would you freak out too?

OP, when I was a little child gripe water had alcohol in it, babies worldwide were given this. It no longer has alcohol but it didn’t do any harm to the millions who had it over the years.

A tiny amount of alcohol will not do any harm to you child, I can absolutely assure you of that.

I had a mum who would put a drop of brandy in hot chocolate to help me sleep when I had bad earache. I wasn’t harmed by this in any way.

Kids up and down the country will have been having sips of their parents drinks, eating mince pies, xmas pudding and cake, liquer chocolates. A tiny bit of alcohol will not have had the slightest effect on them.

You must see your gp as you need to be able to enjoy this time with your child, not be in this state.

Yes, I fully believe you are an intelligent person. However your are an intelligent person who is currently suffering from mental ill health.
This is really what you need to focus on.
I have every sympathy. Your rational brain appears to be satisfied that no harm has come to your child, that if your host wanted a glass of red wine on Christmas day they'd just pour themselves one, not just dollop it in the gravy and feed it to everyone by stealth.
Your irrational brain is telling you that you've screwed up and let something slip by you because you weren't vigilant enough.
It must be horrendous, but you need to concentrate on getting the irrational bit under control.
You can spend all day getting opinions on here, from Sainsbury's etc. but that isn't going to help.
Looking at the responses you have had, I think at least two other posters are food scientists / food technologists, at least one has food manufacturing experience and there are any number of patents telling you that their children have had small amounts of alcohol in food without a problem.
From a practical point of view, don't give your child anything obviously alcoholic ( nobody would give a small child a glass of Scotch, would they?), Look to see if there is a named alcohol in the name of the food "braised in cider, with cherry brandy etc.". As I explained earlier, these are characterising ingredients, so will be declared by percentage in the ingredients.
Avoid any that are cold dessert type products as the alcohol won't have been heated in these. Savoury hot dishes, probably no real risk of meaningful alcohol in the end product, but just don't pick it up if it's in the name or you will end up panicking.
Don't read ingredient lists on anything else and don't look at packaging at other people's houses.
Ask, politely, at the begining of a meal if there is alcohol in anything, then calmly ask that they don't serve any to your child.
Don't make a big fuss, just be polite and accept that people will be happy to do as you ask. Then drop the subject.
Not sure if this step by step approach will work for you, but try and treat is as a list of a set of rules. If the rules are followed everything will be fine.
I am not medically trained as you know, so please get proper help. But try and come up with some coping strategies to take the edge off of things.

When you say don't give your child anything obviously alcoholic, does that mean the gravy?

No. We mean not vodka. Phone GP for health anxiety help. The treatment isn't working.

I believe too that you are an intelligent person.

My posts yesterday were probably a bit harsher than I intended them to sound and I apologise for that. Not in a good place myself for other reasons right now, but won't hijack the thread.

You have not failed your DD at all. I bet she is running around at the moment absolutely fine. I once accidentally fed my DD1 a good portion of trifle when she was the age yours is. I only realised when taking a mouthful of my own that it was well laced with sherry. It was a one off. She was totally fine. She is 22 now, and most certainly undamaged by my various parenting mishaps.

Get a GP appointment to try and get your anxiety under control, and try to enjoy the rest of Christmas.

I haven’t read the whole thread but OP - please do seek out the book Brain Lock. I suffered from horrendous OCD and anxiety for many years and this book was invaluable. NOT seeking reassurance is key to making the anxiety subside, you will never get the reassurance that you need and you just feed the anxiety. The best trick my psychologist taught me was to ‘sit on the fence’ and not engage with the thoughts. Acknowledge the thoughts and almost say to yourself “yes, XYZ may happen but not may not”.

I have an appointment at 3.30 with a locum doctor. I hope he understands because my usual gp doesn't

If your GP isn’t sympathetic can you self refer to an IAPT service. Just google IAPT and the area you live in!

Sorry - did not mean to put a teenage style exclamation there.

No when I say not obviously alcoholic I mean ( as Wolfie said), not vodka, cider, a gin and tonic. No responsible adult would do this, so you can cross that off your list without giving it too much headspace.
The gravy does not contain meaningful amounts of alcohol. We have already established that, but if you see something similar in a supermarket, that says "with red wine", just don't buy it, you will only obsess about it.
The "does any of the food contain alcohol" question would have dealt with the situation yesterday, to which you say " oh, then please could my child have ketchup / bisto, instead? I know it's silly but I would prefer her not to have the gravy."
Don't make a big fuss, just be polite and firm. I can't see anyone objecting to that, or deliberately lying.
If your host hasn't realised there's wine in the gravy, the don't go through the bin looking at food wrappers rule would have dealt with that.

Well done for seeking help for this. You should be very proud of yourself. I, too, suffer with anxiety (though not triggered by alcohol) and it can be terribly debilitating. When DD was very small, I envisaged the most terrible things happening to her. I had therapy, and now she is a very happy, healthy, independent 5yo. I had to learn to lock the thoughts away and that helicopter parenting is not healthy for either of us. I couldn't recommend counselling enough. As you are already aware, alcohol in cooking will not hurt her. It's the "what ifs" that play on your mind. The trick is to get the strategies to not let those take over.

Good luck with the locum. Hopefully he will be a fresh pair of eyes compared with your normal GP, but DO explain everything you have been saying here, don't feel silly or embarrassed. Be totally honest about how it's affecting your life.

Yes, Crispbutty, my DM mixed a minuscule bit of wine with Ribena to help me sleep when I had chicken pox at 6. I don't blame her for that at all.

I grow up eating stroganoff, risotto and roast chicken marinated on wine. The alcohol evaporates as u know by now. I am perfectly normal ish 😂Last year I went to a Christmas party at one of Sen houses I worked for and one of the parents made a triffle with port, you could taste the cherry alcohol and was delicious( I usually serve my children before me so they had eat a spoolfull by the time I realised) oh well they will sleep well tonight was the comments I heard

I really hope the locum did understand.

How did the appointment go?

How are you feeling after your appointment?
Did the locum help?

The surgery called back and said they had made a mistake and that my appointment is tomorrow at 3.30 not today.

I'm feeling much calmer about things now though and have tried to distract myself.

At least it's tomorrow. I'm glad you feel better but be honest about how bad it was so you can make a plan to prevent you feeling like that in future.

That's good to hear. It's a shame your appointment is delayed,but you seem to be in a much better place.

My anxiety/OCD thrives on the 'what ifs' - what if the person cooking the Christmas dinner added more wine to the gravy to make it more alcoholic? What if the chocolate roll had alcohol in it? They are both questions I can't get answers to so they're perfect gateways for my OCD to rub wild and let me believe that I'm an irresponsible parent who is careless when it comes to alcohol.

But you're not.
Hoping the GP can signpost you to get some help.

I'm assuming the person cooking the Christmas dinner was a responsible adult, well known to you, with no history of sneaking undeclared alcohol into your diet?
We have dealt with the gravy issue. It was made with wine, wine is not pure alcohol.
The amount of potential alcohol in your child's portion of gravy was not worth fretting about.
There is nothing to make us believe that the chocolate roll had alcohol at all. It would not be a normal ingredient in this type of product.
You were feeling calmer earlier. What calmed you then? Can you run the calming thoughts through your mind again?

Glad to hear you are feeling calmer now @missladybird and I hope you are over the worst of the anxiety attack.

Not long before you see the GP. Can you think of some good distractions in case you start to feel it bubbling up again in the meantime? I do brain training or Tetris... Occupies my mind just enough for there not to be enough room for the cycle of worrying and what if to perpetuate. Hope you get some sleep and some good news tomorrow.