3 year old constantly hungry-how to manage

[hkk1970]

Hi, my little boy (3) has type 1 and was diagnosed in Jan this year. Obviously he is growing and wants to eat all the time. He has a low carb snack mid morning and mid afternoon with no insulin but is still hungry .How do I manage this without syaing no you cant have anything and him having tantrums..Do I have to inject every time he eats, its bad enough having 4 injections a day. He is on injections novorapid and levemir at night time. Levels still a bit hit and miss, some times high some times low.

We are to go on a pump sometime in the next 6 to 12 months, is this easier to manage when they are constantly hungry?

thanks again,
helen

 

[fencesitter]

Hello
Hard situation as young children are often grazers, needing to eat little and often. Agree a pump would help a lot with this, but in the meantime had some thoughts about more filling low/non carb snacks. Cheese, nuts, cold meat, sausages (latter have a few carbs), fridge raiders, diet yoghurts (weightwatchers do a fromage frais that only has 7 carbs per pot, quite big pot with creamy top and berry compote at the bottom).
For mealtimes, maybe see if you can get some slow release carbs into him, eg. oats at breakfast if they don't play havoc with his bgs (I know some people find porridge difficult, but my 15 yr-old son does fine with it), or eggy bread (using brown bread). Brown rice/pasta for main meal carbs?
If your lad isn't a picky eater you might get somewhere with that. William was really fussy at that age, but mercifully not a diabetic at that point.
Hope this helps a bit.

 

[trophywench]

It is easier with a pump in some ways because if you want to snack on carbs, then delivering a bolus, although you still have to tell the pump to do it, doesn't involve bodging another hole!

Try and get one with a remote so you can do this without him being inconvenienced, as long as the pump (somewhere about his person) is in range of the remote, the insulin will be delivered.

My one communicates using Bluetooth. The Bolus Wizard (ie the gadgetry that calculates what bolus I need from what my BG is right now, how much insulin is already floating round my body from the last Bolus delivery and what my insulin to carb ratio is at this time of day) is on the BG meter, so I test, enter the carbs, tell it to calculate and when it comes up with the answer, I tell it to deliver that amount of insulin. And off it goes.

Alternatively I can work it out myself (or let the meter do it) and physically press buttons on the pump itself to deliver it. That's OK if I have the pump clipped onto my waistband but not if it's dangling off my bra under a dress!

Imagine if that was an evening or wedding dress, you'd get in a hell of a mess wouldn't you?

Not that a 3 yr old boy would have that prob but there's a great video on Roche's website that shows a family on a picnic and mum delivering a bolus to a toddler who is crawling round the rug and they are all eating their lunch. Once she manages to grab a finger to test, he's finished as far as he's concerned.

 

[Ruthie]

Hi!

How funny, we both have three year old boys diagnosed at the same time!

M is always hungry too. We were really fortunate to be put on a pump at diagnosis and it has made snacking much easier as we just bolus insulin as we go along. He has second breakfast, mid-morning snack and two afternoon snacks. I think you'll see a difference once your settled on a pump.

How about sugar-free jelly in the short term? I'm sorry I couldn't give you anymore ideas, injections are a bit confusing to me but wanted to show support!

 

[DeusXM]

A pump will reduce the rigmarole of injections (which I'm guessing could be considerable with a 3-year-old) but they won't solve the issue of hunger.

However, the injection routine your son is on is your best weapon. Firstly, you need to make sure his hunger isn't hypos - if it is, you need to drop his doses. If it's normal hunger, then Willsmum has given you some great advice. You only need Novorapid when you're eating carbs - all the things Willsmum has listed shouldn't raise your son's BG and shouldn't really require an injection. This could actually be very useful anyway - I'm fairly sure that growth requires protein, not carbohydrate, so your son's hunger could be a result of his body needing more protein.

 

[Hanmillmum]

We have this problem some days with incessant hunger, although my daughter is on a pump. I will fill her up with protein based foods if she is still hungry after her usual breakfast and snack - as others have suggested. it must be difficult on injections with this issue!