r/Celiac • u/Due_Reveal_9212 • 1d ago
Question 1st celiac Halloween
This is my 7 year old son's first Halloween after a celiac diagnosis. How do you handle trick or treating? We thought about still allowing him to trick or treat, then having safe candies on hand for him to trade into us at the end of the night. What do you do?
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u/llamapants15 1d ago
I keep safe candies at home and my daughter "trades in" unsafe things. I then take the unsafe stuff to work to get rid of it as I also can't eat it
My daughter is now 13 and she was diagnosed 4 years ago. Its worked for us
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u/GlitterMeStoked 1d ago
This is what my parents did for me growing up! Sometimes my brother and I would trade too (he is not celiac). I didn’t mind it because I actually got more candy that I preferred.
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u/orangeonesum 1d ago
My son is now 15, but growing up he would trade within his own friendship group as they knew he couldn't have gluten and would swap.
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u/Frycookboots_ 1d ago
Exactly this! My son was younger for his first celiac Halloween. We just explained we would trade him with safe candy when we got home.
It was really cute (although caused some mild panic for a couple neighbors) because he’d say “Trick or treat please! Is this candy gluten free?” at every single house even though we kept telling him we would check. Practicing self advocacy, I guess!
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u/WhileAsleep 1d ago
Oh my goodness that sounds like my 3 year old and I'm fully expecting him to do this on Halloween
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u/ZeroCoolMom 1d ago
I learned about this after an age it would work on. But I heard some families did The Switch Witch. They leave the candies they can't have in their bucket outside their bedroom door and the Switch Witch trades them in the night for things they can have, kind of like the tooth fairy.
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u/Rileybiley 1d ago
This is what we do too. We have to deal with celiac (husband) and a peanut allergy (child) and I keep a gluten free and peanut free house. When we get back, I dump all the candy onto the floor and separate them out into 4 piles:
1) Safe for everyone
2) Not safe at all: these are given out to kids still coming to our door
3) GF but not peanut free: also either given away or we’ll take them to work to share.
4) peanut free but not GF: kids aren’t allowed to eat at home but they can take to school.
I exchange all unsafe candy 1:1 for safe candy. We only give out safe candy but I also like to buy some “premium” candy just for them so they’re more excited to trade.
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u/toocuteforthisshit Celiac 1d ago
as a kid i just did it normally and my dad would eat the stuff i couldn’t eat lol
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u/LStenson28 1d ago
Hi! We are big Halloween fans and my daughter was diagnosed at age 4. We allow her to trick or treat. I don’t want her thinking about/stressing over what candy she should pick. So we keep it low pressure and let her pick what she wants. We then sort it at home and then she can either trade it in for gluten free candy or a toy. If I see her picking a lot of the same gluten candy (she was picking a ton of cookies n cream bars one year) I’ll mention it to her. We make it fun and she enjoys it!!
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u/TeaPlusJD 1d ago
Not sure if this is common by you but look out for teal-colored pumpkins, both as the treat container & as your child’s bag/bucket.
Teal indicates major allergen free & would include universally safe treats or non-food items. Houses around us that leave candy out will often have a teal pumpkin off to the side.
For the candy we collect but can’t eat, some is given/traded to the cousins & friends, & their parents, in our group. Otherwise, we have quite a few older adults in our building so my daughter does a reverse trick-or-treating.
We also place the emphasis on more of a costume parade than candy collection. Favorite costume you saw, most common, funniest, scariest, etc.
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u/katm12981 1d ago
We have some kids with food restrictions in our neighborhood and we make sure to set aside the treats they can have, so they can get them right from us. In our case we just set aside Starburst and safe gummy bears. I wonder if some of your neighbors would do the same, especially if you offered to drop them off ahead of time? (For us we’re happy to buy the special treat!)
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u/TraditionalHeart6387 1d ago
We do trade ins and put the unsafe back in the trick or treat bin. At the end of the night husband and I go around and reverse trick or treat with the stuff we can't eat.
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u/Serious-Train8000 1d ago
My son trades with his buddies for available/unavailable - fortunately a local kid has a peanut allergy so they have a nice switch option.
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u/Rose1982 1d ago
Trade with siblings or friends night of. If that doesn’t suffice I have also taken all the gluten containing treats and replaced them with the equivalent treats of their choosing- doesn’t even have to be traditional Halloween candy, just anything they’d be excited about.
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u/Total_Jello_6691 1d ago
That’s what we do with my daughter and we haven’t had an issue. My daughter was 5/6 when she was diagnosed. It’s more about the whole process of Halloween than eating the candy. She likes to sort it out and trade it even if she’s not going to eat it.
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u/parametricize Celiac Household 1d ago
We also trade (8 yo) and it works well. I will say that I made a big mistake last year to let her eat something from her bag while we were trick or treating. Let my house down and she had a sweet tart thing with gluten. Don’t be like me… wait until you get home so you can check better.
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u/Weary_Bell_5401 1d ago
Trade out the gluten candy for non gluten candy. I have celiac and I hand out other kinds…
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u/ascthebookworm 1d ago
I buy celiac-safe candy to hand out and keep some aside for him, but honestly, there’s not too much he can’t have from his haul, so I usually don’t even need to swap things in!
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u/Allergybuster 17h ago
The candy exchange sounds like a great way to let him enjoy trick-or-treating without feeling left out. Having a collection of treats you've already checked at home could make the evening easier.
Full disclosure: I help develop AllergyBuster, an app for reviewing ingredient labels and identifying potential allergens. It could help with the initial review of packaged candy, but I'd still verify gluten-free labeling and manufacturer information before adding anything to his safe-candy collection.
Hope he has an amazing Halloween!
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u/jojojobeth 16h ago
We used to do exactly this and then as my daughter got older (almost 13 now), she started trading with her friends instead. I was really worried at first (she was diagnosed at 5), that it would be upsetting for her, but the swapping process quickly became a fun family tradition.
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u/Beginning_Fold1146 12h ago
What about hosting a candy swap with his friends?! To make it something fun and unique rather than disappointing.
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u/FigureFour717 12h ago
I always trick or treated just fine.
When I got home we'd dump it all out and anything with cookies or rice krispies or something that I couldn't eat we'd put in the bowl to re-give out.
I always had plenty.
Most is just fine -- and Reeses are my FAVE.
I love halloween!!
it's a great holiday for GF.
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u/Houseofmonkeys5 48m ago
My kids always went with friends and siblings. At the end of the night, we just did a giant candy swap. Since a lot of the gluten candy is stuff like Twix and Milky Way, it was never an issue to find someone who wanted to trade for the gf candy.
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u/Blueydgrl56 1d ago
I’d suggest searching this group this question has been asked multiple times. Good luck
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