Has anyone had success with altering a child's diet in order to improve their behaviour ?

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My DD (3) was really hyper active today, chattering and jumping about and shouting. It was a big celebration in our house and when I looked back over the day, I realised that she had eaten nothing but crap all day, lots of chocolate, crisps etc. That made me think about her diet which has deteriorated quite a lot in the last few months since her little sister was born. I have been using quick fixes like crisps and biscuits too often.

I have decided to overhaul both her and her 16 month old brother's diet in an attempt to improve their behaviour and try and calm DD down.

Has anyone else done similar, and if so what did you do? What effect did it have? How difficult was it to change bad habits?

I also noticed that my children were having mad moments, so stopped all sugar. It didn't make any difference. They were still chattery and stuff. What made a difference was them going out on their bikes and being active. Even walks to the park after school helped.

When my 2.5yo DS gets too uncontrolable, I always review his diet and cut out any sweets or sugars (I wouldn't give them anyway but my DH is opposite). It takes things back under control, although I am not sure whether it is a direct impact of giving/not giving sugars...

Not difficult once they are used to it. The first week was quite hard.

They only get treats during the weekend, maybe some cake, or icecream. No biscuits unless it is weekend. No crisps at all, due to the high salt and fat content.
Only sweets on a saturday. Such as chocolate, as I dont like artificial colours etc.
No pudding midweek aside from fruit.
No chocolate spread.
Wholemeal bread, with ham, or salami, or cheese, rasberry jam or blueberry jam in the morning, preferably home made.

I think artificial colours and sweeteners are the work of the devil.

In addition, they get omega3 daily.
Children can learn to eat smoked salmon and mackerel in tomato.

Totally agree with MrsCrafty! Mine are better behaved after they have been exhausted by (possibly excessive) outdoors stuff - sometimes unsupervised.

We try and get ours outdoors/active for at least an hour on a school day (in addition to whatever they do at school) and at least half the day each Saturday and Sunday.

They went mad with poor behaviour last week when it was really rainy and windy because they were missing out on outdoor time at school and we reduced it at home. We tried the Wii to commpensate, but that just seemed to wind them up. I'm hoping we have a dry-ish winter!

e numbers really effect my kids.

How many days of elimination from the diet to get a difference? I've heard at least two months, and that you need to watch for problem behaviour for at least a month after a single reintroduction. Which basically means I'd have to live with DC on a remote (remote by Hebridean standards) Hebridean Island with no other residents to have that much control over their diet.

But I am hoping there might be more realistic experiences here? :)

I cut out certain e numbers about 8 years ago, from my DDs diet on the advice of my Dr. She used to have voilent temper tantrums that she could not control. Her behavior improved dramatically!

I cut out artificial sweetners, especially aspartame and my daughter who was 3, changed over night. I know when shes had some at school or at a friends house because the next day she is vile, shouting, spitting sometimes bitting so quite extream!! she is 6 now and her reactions are getting less noticable. she will sometimes comment that her head feels fuzzy after she has had a sugarfree drink (i try not to make an issue out of avoiding them at parties/friends houses etc).