[BabeBlossom]

I would love peoples advice and experiences on putting their toddlers through a gluten challenge for Coeliac diagnosis.

DD has never tolerated gluten so we were never able to fully introduce it enough before she was diagnosed FTT and taken off it entirely to help her growth. Now the dreaded time has come and her paed wants me to start introducing it so when we see her allergist next month we can start talking about testing. We already know she has the Coeliac gene and a couple more marker genes so I have a pretty strong feeling she may have it and this is going to be a horrendous experience for all of us. DD is also dairy and soy intolerant and on a low fructose diet so we still need to keep going with these restrictions.

How did your little one(and you!) cope and what helped get everyone through?
How were you advised to introduce gluten, start off small or just go all in with breads and cereals and not worrying about cross contamination any more?
Was there anything specifically you were encouraged to include or stay away from?

[BabeBlossom]

Anyone? Any experiences or advice? Doesn't even need to be for your toddler, older child or adult is fine. Our allergist appointment is in 3 weeks and I need to get this started and feeling well out of my depth!

[ZombieMum]

There was an interesting article in the Coeliac Society Magazine a couple of years ago that was about re-introducing gluten for a challenge - but I think it was more about the reaction to gluten. It was found that immediate reactions were more severe early on in the challenge, but there was a slight improvement later on.

Has she been officially diagnosed with fructose issues? If so, then I guess introducing wheat back into the diet would be a no-no? If she can have wheat - then I might consider giving her 2 pieces of bread at night, so she can hopefully sleep when her body will be reacting the most.

There is a risk that your child will refuse to eat the food - as they might be aware that it makes them feel sick, so it can be difficult to feed them gluten foods.
Before my DD was diagnosed, she had stopped eating a lot of foods. I finally found that she would eat french toast - so that way she was still eating gluten before her biopsy.

It's really difficult as a parent to knowingly feed your child food that could be making them very sick - so you just have to keep reminding yourself that it will be worth it in the end - you don't really want to do the challenge for 3 weeks then bail out.

Just be prepared for a decline in behaviour, sleeping, eating and health, and take it easy on yourself and your child. My DD had no energy, so I couldn't even take her shopping as she struggled with walking around the supermarket!
We also had a lot of sleepless nights.
It was worth it in the end, to get the official diagnosis.

Good luck!