Managing allergies at home

If you have one child and they are allergic to something like peanuts, it's fairly easy to manage.

But when you have more than one child, and they are allergic to virtually opposite things, it gets quite tricky!

No two situations are exactly alike, but this is what we've done when we have had:

1. First child allergic to nuts (including peanuts), sesame, and a sensitivity to soy

2. Second child (three years younger) allergic to wheat, dairy, egg, white fish

When the doctors ask you to ensure that the children have the top allergens that they are NOT allergic to on a regular basis, this makes things extra tricky. So we have done the following:

- When the second child was a baby (and his older brother a toddler), we had no wheat/gluten in the house. I just didn't want to worry about the baby licking his brother's toast crumbs off the floor. So we had a lot of gluten free products! I managed to find a buckwheat pancake mix that tasted ok with mashed bananas and soy milk. The eldest with the sensitivity to soy wasn't that keen on the pancakes generally but the soy cooked was fine for him compared to fresh soy milk.

- Plastic milk bottles with plastic/re-useable straws (with different lids that can't be accidentally interchanged) for each. This works once they are old enough to sip the milk from a straw while sitting up. The first child brushes his teeth straight after having his cow's milk, and the only other dairy we have in the house is (once he started primary school), the first chid's pre-packaged cheese and yoghurt to bring to school.

- We mostly gave the eldest things like eggs and white fish whenever we would eat out with him (and keep it separate from his younger brother).

- We had to give the baby (and still do, now that he is a toddler), peanut butter at least once a week, so I would pre-prepare some grapes (or other food suitable for whatever age he was at the time), put some peanut butter on my finger, and put it straight into his mouth. Then I would give the other food I had pre-prepared to "wash" it down so that he wouldn't pose a danger to his brother (by, for example, sucking on a toy that they both play with or touch or may put in their mouth). We would do the same thing with hommous (to keep up his tolerance to sesame).

- Separate sponges for the baby, and the rest of the family (in case there were traces of any allergens).