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How many carbs

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jodywody72

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi everyone

I have decided to try carb counting for my son myself. Can anyone give me an idea of how many carbs their children have for each meal, just to give me something to start on. I think we are giving my son too many carbs at his evening meal but don't have a clue how much he should have. He's a skinny 8 year old who is always hungry!:confused:

Many thanks

Joanne
 
Hi Joanne, I moved this to the Parents section so it would catch more parent's eyes (it's sometimes tricky to know where to put a post!).
 
With carb counting there's no set amount of carbs he has to have. You just add together all the amounts of carbs in each food and inject accordingly. It's a bit difficult to tell you, as everyone is different, how much insulin he would need for his carbs.

Carol has two different ratios for her food. At breakfast she needs 2u of rapid per 10g of carbs. At the other meals she only needs 1 1/2u per 10g. When we first changed over to carb counting, we started with 1u per 10g just to see what's happening and slowly increased it until we got it right. It took us about 6 weeks to get the ratios right. And also, Carol doesn't use a slow acting insulin in the morning. She only has the Levemir at betime.

I hope this helps a little bit.
 
Hi Jodywody72,

There isnt a 'right' amount of carbs per child - it does depend on their appetitie. Having said that, I do understand that you need a starting point so you 'feel' that you have something to base it on.

Alex is 12 and he has :

Breakfast - 50/60 carbs
Lunch - 50/60 carbs
Evening Meal - 60/70 carbs (often less maybe about 30/40)

These all vary obviously so dont feel that you have to stick to a certain amount. If Alex has a pizza for example this is 110 carbs and then he might have a desert aswell - bringing it up to about 140 carbs.

He also has a snack when he gets home from school of about 20 carbs.

Do remember that despite what some in the Medical Profession say, for some people, you just cannot have a 'free carb' without insulin. I used to give Alex a 'free carb' snack when he was on injections (he is now on a pump) and didnt give him insulin for it - but we soon found out that he needed insulin for every single thing he ate - apart from hypo treatment of course.

I think its great that you want to learn carb count - it is the only way to go. If you really want to get into it - buy the 'carbsandcals' book or you can get the ipod version which is great for children as it is visual.🙂Bev
 
We started carb-counting just over 3 months ago, we started with 1 narvorapid every 20g carbs and now for breakfast it is 1 in 18, lunch 1 in 15 and tea time 1 in 20. Bear in mind she is only 2 years old, I find on forum mostly are on 1 in 10g. Yes, carb-counting is quite hard work but worth it to get Carly's level more stable so good luck 🙂
 
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