Galactosemia Food Information Cooperative
School Issues
It is important to let your child's daycare provider and/or school know about your child's diet restrictions. The Texas Department of Health offers "A Teacher's Guide to Galactosemia" on their web site. Some parents have written their own "Galactosemia Guides" in order to better address their child's specific diet needs.
My husband and I wrote a "guide" about galactosemia for our son's pre-school teachers. This guide was written to address diet concerns only. Click here to read our "Guide about Galactosemia" for preschool.
New: December 2006 We have
since created another “shortened version” of the preschool guide that you may
find helpful for elementary school: “Guide about
Galactosemia for Elementary School”
New: July 2006 I have also created a basic list of
unacceptable foods. This list IS NOT
comprehensive, but can be easily edited to your preferences. I tried to make
this list a bit simplified (i.e., it only includes the basics). It was created
as a means to share basic information with others who are less familiar with
galactosemia. (It might be helpful
to share with a teacher or daycare provider.) Click here for the basic
unacceptable food list.
I would love to post other "Guides"
from other parents, so if you have one and would like to share it here please
email me tfcozzo@comcast.net
TIPS For Daycare/School
If you have any good "tips" to
offer other parents concerning daycare or school issues please let me know and
I will add it here and credit you with the "tip".
Tips For Daycare:
Some parents choose to provide their child's
snack/Lunch on a daily basis.
Some parents provide their daycare provider with a list of
restricted ingredients.
Tips For Pre-school:
Some pre-schools may let you read the ingredient labels of
the food that they will be serving to the children and will let you mark the
food
as "OK" or "not OK" for your child.
Some parents send in a snack for their child on a daily
basis.
Some parents provide a "rubbermaid" container
of various "allowed" foods and leave it at school. The child
can pick out what he wants from among the snacks in the
container.
Tips for Elementary School:
Some parents pack their child's lunch every day.
Some parents read the labels on the foods in the cafeteria
on a regular basis.
Some parents are allowed to store special treats in the
cafeteria refreezer for their child.
Here
are some great tips from Bonnie Murphy: (thank
you Bonnie!)
"Here is
what I have done with Michelle.
I have gone over the school lunch menu with the school in advance. This usually means you have to contact
the district plant where they actually make the food, and get the
ingredients. In Michelle’s case
she has 3 options per day to choose from.
What I did was have her eat lunch from school as often as possible
because this is “real life” and she is going to be eating for herself and
making these decisions. So
in the morning, we go over the menu and ask her which one of the 3 she can
have? She is now aware of what is
and isn’t ok for her to eat.
Living in Texas there is a lot of beans etc so she is really getting a handle
on that too.
Michelle also
knows to ask if something has milk in it and also understands her diet. Parents of older Galactosemics
told me she would get it around 2
or 3. I didn’t believe it, but she
does. She cannot read the
ingredients yet but she knows how to ask anyone if there is milk or beans in
it. If they don’t know then she
doesn’t eat it.
Just thought I
would point out what we have done to help her adjust to school. Life isn’t going to be that special
regarding her food so she needs to live within life as it is with her
limitations. This has also
helped when Michelle goes to Birthday parties. What I do in this situation is find cake mixes that are
safe, I bake up cupcakes and freeze them. There is also a few frostings I have found with soy or
no other lactose. So when
she goes to a party I just drop off a “frosted cupcake” and sometimes I put in
soy toffuti ice cream but not
always because again she needs to understand that she cannot have what
others always can have.
Regarding pizza,
I have found lactose free cheese with no additives and when Michelle goes to a party
or has a party at a pizza parlor she brings the “special cheese” and we have
them cook a pizza with her
“special cheese” We have had some
great support from restaurants that will do this for us."