Hello all. Apologies in advance for the length of this post!
DD 3.5yrs (quick background - hyperlexic, likely autistic, late speech but now super chatty) has big mood swings which are more than the average threenager stuff. Her nursery have had many chats with us about this.
I know a lot of it comes down to tiredness (she rarely sleeps well) and also to sensory overstimulation. However, I’ve definitely noticed a big reaction to certain foods. They’re not foods I would necessarily have expected to cause any behaviour problems so it’s unfortunately taken a while to identify them.
One major issue, weirdly, is the Gruffalo biscuits made by Organix. About 30 minutes to an hour after she’s had them she goes quite suddenly into major meltdown mode which then lifts just as suddenly about half an hour to an hour later. We’ve tested it several times and you can set your watch. We think the same thing happens with Suckies, the squeezy yoghurt pouches. I’ve copied the ingredients lists below but the only thing that seems consistent is grape juice… Is that a known factor? The other things we currently suspect and are testing are Peppa Pig chewy vitamins and Shreddies.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think sugar is necessarily the issue (although obviously never great) because she can eat a tub of chocolate ice cream with no ill effects!
Anyway, I would so appreciate any insight, even if just in how to go about getting this looked into. I’m going to mention it to the GP but perhaps I should be looking into food intolerance specialists?
Ingredients:
Gruffalo biscuits:
Wheat flour 38.6%
Grape juice concentrate 24.9%
Wholegrain wheat flour 20.8%
Sustainably sourced palm oil 5.9%
Sunflower oil 3.6%
Wholegrain oat flour 3.0%
Cocoa powder 2.1%
Vanilla extract 0.5%
Lemon juice concentrate 0.4%
Raising agent (sodium bicarbonate)* 0.3%
Thiamin (vitamin B1)* <0.1%
Total 100%
*Raising agent (bicarbonate and Thiamin (vitamin B1) have no organic certification
Suckies:
Live Yoghurt* (Milk) (82%), Strawberry Puree (9%), Concentrated Apple Juice, Concentrated Grape Juice, Cornflour, Natural Flavourings, Concentrated Lemon Juice, Vitamin D, *Contains Cultures: L. Bulgaricus and S. Thermophilus