Halloween

[Tazi752000]

Halloween is such an exciting time for kids. My son just loves to dress up and absolutely loves Halloween. He started bugging me about putting up decorations over a month ago. I let him go trick or treating and I limit him to 1-2 pieces of candy per day. The difficulty is I love chocolate so I also end up eating a few pieces per day until the good chocolate is gone. I am curious how other parent's deal with this diet challenging holiday?

[circle city vegan]

Halloween madness!

I've got the 4 of them collecting candy. It is so much fun watching them enjoy themselves. That being said, the candy in the house is absolute chaos. I've been for the last few years letting them just gorge themselves on it for two days until it's all gone. When it's gone, its gone and no more candy. I go around constantly picking up any half eaten candy and throwing it away. I cleaned out all the gum and choking hazard hard candy right away. I like letting them just go through it so fast because then things get back to normal more quickly and I don't have to be a cop watching and guarding and passing out the "allotment" every day. What a hassle especially for something I don't want them eating anyway.

I only walk them around the block so they really don't get that much. They don't "need" to go for miles filling up their bags.

[circle city vegan]

I totally forgot about my challenge with the sweets. My rule is not even one piece. If I do not even eat one piece then I'm OK. But if I talk myself into eating just one little snickers snack size candy, then it's all over and I eat every chocolate candy that I can wrestle out of my poor sweet sticky fisted angels.

[Pacificfords]

I am curious how other parent's deal with this diet challenging holiday?

We have always had a system in our house because sugar has always been limited because it slows the immune system and I wanted my son to be healthy. So, we let him pick a couple of pieces to eat on Halloween night. Then, the rest gets sorted... things he loves, things he doesn't care about and we get rid of at least half of it. The rest goes in the freezer and he gets a piece or two a couple times a week. It usually only lasts about a month or so. I was slightly temped last night, but I didn't have any. Today... it doesn't even look good. Once it goes in the freezer it is out of my sight and I don't even think about it.

[jamietwo]

When my child was younger we went to a Halloween party at a natural food store where he could get vegan goodies, and one year he elected to go trick-or-treating "for the experience", but we gave the candy away. We started a tradition when he was young where he would knock on a door in our house and we would give him a small gift or "healthy" snack. Several doors later he was a happy camper. Now that he's older, he also enjoys Halloween parties with friends.

[TheGreenBird]

My son is only 14 months old so we haven't done this yet, but we plan to do the 'switch witch' for Halloween in the future as we don't want him to eat any "conventional" candy like what is given out.

What we'll do is tell him that the switch witch needs his candy so he's allowed to keep 1-2 pieces of it all and then if he puts it out on the front porch she will come and take it and replace it with something he wants like a new toy.

Then we'll either throw it out or give it away. I heard this year in my area dentists are buying candy for $1/lb and sending it overseas to the soldiers and I thought that was cool.

[janluvs2heel]

Then we'll either throw it out or give it away. I heard this year in my area dentists are buying candy for $1/lb and sending it overseas to the soldiers and I thought that was cool.

I know there is at least 1 DDS in my area who does that, but not so sure it is a good idea to send that stuff to our troops!! Your idea of tossing it is a better idea!!

Jan

[Tazi752000]

I like the idea of switching it for a toy. That way they still get a reward!