Peanut-free household

 

When Gideon turned two years old, we started introducing Gideon to different nuts. We soon found that he loved the most expensive nuts, cashews and pine nuts. I think he takes after his mother. 

We decided to introduce peanut slowly. First we gave Gideon peanut butter on toast and noticed that he got a red mark on his cheek. We waited several weeks and tried again. Gideon got a red mark on his cheek again. Then we tried crush peanuts with raisins, like a trail mix. He started to cough a lot after eating the peanuts and raisins. The pieces were very small so we thought they just tickled his throat.

We waited a few weeks again before introducing peanut butter puff cereal. Within minutes, Gideon had itchy and puffy eyes. We stopped the cereal and gave him benadryl. I was worried about the reaction. The benadryl helped and Gideon was not fussy. He was hungry and wanted more food since I took his cereal away.  We took him to daycare and I called the doctor's office about next steps. Our pediatrician responded right away and referred us to see an allergist. On January 4th, the allergist pricked Gideon's back with a small amount of peanut. Within seconds, a hive appeared and quickly increased in size in the 20 minutes.

We have become proud owners of epi-pens. We are a peanut-free household. We read every label before purchasing items in grocery stores. We love our son. We are learning as we go along and I am glad that I had learned about this in my preschool teacher days, learning about how to use an epi-pen and how to read labels.

So now, if Garrett and I want peanut items, we eat them at work. =)