83. Halloween & Autism: Managing Candy, Sensory Sensitivities, and Selective Eating
In this episode of The Nourishing Autism Podcast, Brittyn is getting you ready for Halloween: sensory challenges, candy overload, costumes, excitement, and all. You'll hear all about blood sugar - why big behaviors around candy aren’t “random”, how low blood sugar can cause meltdowns or dysregulation, and simple ways to steady things with balanced nutrition before the festivities begin.
You’ll also hear about sensory-friendly ideas, from adaptive costume tips to alternatives to candy that still feel fun and rewarding. Whether your child thrives with a low-sensory trunk-or-treat, prefers helping hand out goodies, or wants to fully join in the neighborhood fun, you’ll hear practical ways to make Halloween feel safe, predictable, and enjoyable.
Have a Happy Halloween!!
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Learn more Halloween tips by reading the Autism and Halloween: 15 Non-Candy Treat Ideas Blog HERE!
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm Brittyn, a Registered Dietitian and autism sibling. I have a passion for helping parents of neurodivergent kids navigate nutrition and wellness for their child, one small step at a time. Here we'll explore practical nutrition tips, learn from top autism experts, break down the newest research, and share inspirational stories that will empower you to utilize nutrition to help your child feel their best and thrive.
Listen in while picking kids up from school, sitting in a therapy waiting room, taking a quick walk or wherever you find yourself, looking for some inspiration and a friend to guide you along this journey. This is Nourishing Autism.
Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm so excited for this week's topic where we dig into Halloween and prepping ahead of time to make sure that it is as successful as possible when it comes down to candy and nutrition, but also Halloween costumes and the sensory sensitivities that may come up during Halloween. So we're gonna talk through that, it's perfect because it's just a few days before Halloween, so hopefully this gives you enough time to really feel prepared going into Halloween and trick or treating. First, I wanna take a second to say thank you so much everybody, for sharing in excitement with me about the launch of my new app, Food Hopper.
I am so incredibly excited to share this with you, and if you haven't heard about it yet, definitely go listen to last week's episode where I share a little bit about the backstory behind Food Hopper and some of the features that Food Hopper will have. Basically it's an app that is going to support you as a parent in exposing your child to new foods and helping you come up with new creative ideas based on the foods they already love.
You can also track exposures, track how it went, and make sure that you are staying organized when it comes to new foods and how many times you're exposing them, and making sure that you're doing it in a sensory friendly way. I'm super pumped and we will be pre-launching the app on Black Friday, and we will be shooting a message out to everybody on the wait list.
We already have hundreds and hundreds of people on the wait list. I'm super excited about that. And if you'd like to get on the wait list so that you can be notified whenever we open up the pre-launch, you can go to foodhopper.co or you can message me on Instagram, just the words Food Hopper, and I will send you the link to join the wait list.
We will be having a super exclusive pre-launch to save 50% locked in on your subscription of Food Hopper, and we'll also have a limited number of lifetime subscriptions that we'll be offering for a super, super discounted price. So again, be sure that you get in on the wait list for Food Hopper so that you can be notified whenever we open up
that exclusive opportunity. And then the app will actually be available for download mid-January, and I can't wait. I can't wait to put it in your hands. It's so exciting. And if you wanna see a sneak peek as well, you can also go to food hopper.co and see more about the app, some screenshots. We'll have more coming to you soon and if you wanna stay in the know about what's happening and vote on new features, as well as giving insight as we finish up developing this app and making sure that all the details are perfect, you can also get exclusive sneak peeks inside of the Food Hoppers Insider Broadcast channel on Instagram.
If you go to my profile @autismdietitian, you can click on the Food Hoppers Insider broadcast channel and you can join, and that way you're up to speed on everything Food Hopper.
Now let's dive into Halloween. So I really wanna outline three main areas. We are going to talk about blood sugar and candy and why that's so important for your child. Blood sugar is a huge topic that I cover inside of my membership, The Nourishing Autism Collective. And it's a commonly missed area that we don't talk about a lot in autism, a lot of people don't realize that blood sugar is something that we need to be paying attention to.
Next, we're gonna talk about sensory friendly Halloween alternatives and adaptive costumes and different ways that you can help your child have the best Halloween possible from a sensory perspective of wearing costumes. And then I'm gonna give you some additional tips for a successful Halloween and how to prep your child ahead of time to make sure that you are setting them up for success, heading into trick or treating and knowing what to expect.
So let's start with blood sugar. A lot of people don't realize that blood sugar is something that we need to pay attention to in autism. Now our blood sugar is going to go up and down throughout the day whenever we eat and whenever we are fasting.
And this is for children as well. And when our blood sugar dips below a certain range, this is going to be different for everybody. But you can start to have certain symptoms that are going to not make you feel so good, are going to make you perhaps a little shaky, perhaps a little hangry. And just not feeling like yourself.
You can't focus optimally, you can't do your job optimally. And kids can't participate in school and therapies optimally when their blood sugar is out of range and what feels good for them. Now, the reason that our blood sugar could dip into this range is if we are not eating consistently enough throughout the day.
Or the foods that we are eating are what we call lonely carbs or lonely sugar, where we eat food that doesn't have any fat or protein paired with it. And what happens when we eat these quote unquote lonely carbs is that our blood sugar goes up really quickly and then our body tries to do its job to bring it back down,
that then it drops really quickly. There's a term for this and certain people struggle with this more. It's called reactive hypoglycemia. I actually have this, and I especially have it when I'm pregnant, to the point where I have to make sure I am eating a significant amount of protein and fat with all of my meals or else my blood sugar will get too low too quickly.
So for kids, the problem with this is that a lot of kids who are selective eaters, the foods that are going to match their sensory profile often aren't packed with a ton of protein or fat or fiber. These are three nutrients that I really recommend focusing in on for kids on the spectrum. And I talk a lot about this inside of the Nourishing Autism Collective, about PFF plates, protein, fat, and fiber.
So whenever we are only eating those foods that don't have protein and fat or fiber in them, and our blood sugar is going up and down and up and down, and kids are grazing all throughout the day, we're seeing huge fluctuations in their blood sugar. And that can absolutely cause changes in behavior.
Basically, if they're just not feeling optimally and their blood sugar is low, they're not going to be able to be in the best mood and have the best behavior, and at this point, their behavior, acting out maybe in a meltdown or not being very regulated. That is not just some random behavior. That is them communicating that their blood sugar is low and they're not feeling great, and so many kids are trying to balance this subconsciously by snacking all throughout the day trying to keep their blood sugars in a normal range.
They don't know that's why they're snacking, but it's because they're not full and their blood sugar's not an optimum level. Now when we start to pair in protein and fat and fiber, these nutrients leave our stomach slower, and so whenever that happens, our blood sugar is able to not spike as quickly and it's not going to drop as drastically either.
We get to keep it at this more maintained level. Now, the reason I'm telling you all of this is because a huge part of Halloween is candy. And of course there's going to be a lot of added sugars there. There are going to be a lot of quote unquote lonely carbs that are being consumed and usually in higher amounts.
And so whenever we're eating a large amount of sugar all at once, of course our blood sugar is gonna spike, and then, right after it's going to plummet. And so what I want for us to consider, if your child is going to be eating candy, is that we make sure that we pair this with food before they go trick or treating, or before they're eating some candy on Halloween.
Let's get them a good meal. We don't wanna be going into trick or treating, being ravenous, having our blood sugar low, where they're just gonna over consume sugar to the point where they have this huge spike and huge drop. So have a meal. Make sure, thinking through their safe foods, which of those have protein in them, even if this is chicken nuggets, that's a great source of protein and some fat in there to help set them up for success from a blood sugar standpoint.
So getting them a really solid meal ahead of time, even if it's like a balanced snack ahead of time that has more protein and some fat in there. That's awesome. Fiber is great too, but optimally it would be some protein and fat. Now there are some candies that are going to have naturally some protein and fat in them, like peanut butter cups, for example, that's gonna have some fat and protein in there. In fact, some of those like Reese's, not that I'm saying the ingredients are perfect, but I just wanna let you know like the Reese's Eggs and the Reese's Pumpkins actually have like three to four grams of protein in them because they are more packed with peanut butter in there. Now, they do have a substantial amount of added sugar, which of course is not ideal. But also thinking through that if your child is going to enjoy these foods, that some of these may be a better setup for their blood sugar than others, versus like eating like a lollipop, for example, that is just going to have exclusively carbohydrate and added sugars, and we are more likely to see a big spike and drop.
Now I want us to remember too, that trick or treating is so much more than just getting candy. There is so much social interaction and practice that's wrapped up in all of this. And so I know that many of you don't want to feed your children candy. That's not a part of their food list if they're a selective eater.
And so I want you to know that even if your child doesn't eat candy, even involving them in trick or treating, even just in a few houses, can be a really great experience. And you can also bring some of your child's favorite foods so that you can put them inside of their basket that they can choose from even though they're not gonna eat that candy that's in their trick or treating bucket, that they can still participate and get something really fun out of it. In fact, we just took my son to a trunk or treating, which is actually a great idea if your child does have sensory sensitivities and going trick or treating is just sensory overload.
Trying to find some kind of trunk or treat can be a better option because it's a more closed, controlled experience and maybe not be as loud and way less overstimulating. So if you can find one of those leading up to Halloween, that could be something worth trying if you haven't already.
But we took some of my son's favorite foods. We really like the Solely brand, S-O-L-E-L-Y, and that is dried fruit. And they have these dried fruit gummies that is just one ingredient, which is mango. And then they also have some different flavors that you can do, mango and guava, mango and blueberry, and he loves all of those.
And they also have some fruit strips. I'm not sponsored by Solely, but Solely if you want to sponsor me, I would love to talk. But they have these really great like fruit strips that I love and we do those a lot with my son Sam. Cause they're so easy. You can throw them in your purse and he loves them.
So we actually brought some of those with us because, he's about to turn three and haven't introduced candy to him yet. I personally don't mind him consuming candy and maybe someday that's a good social experience for him with other kids. But that's just been our personal choice, not to expose him yet.
So I brought some of his favorite foods that he does know, and we put them in there along with the candy that he gathered, and he did end up choosing, for himself, the Solely little gummies and the Solely strips. I also put some of the Bear brand, BEAR, where they have, it's like a dried fruit strip.
They have roll-ups and then they have like full strips. And what's cool is the little card that comes inside, the small ones, like the fruit roll-ups they have different animal cards that you can collect and in the larger fruit strips, they have different types of superheroes that you can collect as well.
And he finds that really fun. I get those from Whole Foods, but they have them at Costco as well if you are looking to buy in bulk and try those out. But I've seen them all over the place, lots of different flavors and colors and types of foods too. So those can be some really nice things to try. If you're gonna try that on Halloween,
I would recommend trying them ahead of time so that it's not a completely new food going into Halloween. They'll kind of know what to expect, but there are plenty of things that you can toss down in your child's trick or treating bucket. It could be a pouch, like one of their go-to pouches.
It could be a variety of things depending on their food preferences. So keep that in mind. Bring those with you while you're trick or treating, or even allowing them to do like a mock trick or treat. And you can give them some of their favorite foods that they eat on a daily basis as well, and help them feel included and get the social experience too of trick or treating.
Now let's talk about sensory friendly Halloween alternatives and adaptations. So we all know that many of the costumes are not very comfortable to wear. They're pretty itchy on the inside. They have tags. So I would recommend if you haven't had success before, thinking about how we can have a comfortable experience underneath and
of course wearing clothes under their costumes can be really helpful, but also thinking about how can we create a costume that maybe doesn't involve a huge sensory experience. For my son, he really wanted to be Mader, and it was just one of those costumes that you can pull over regular clothes and it has little straps that just hang on his shoulders and for him, that was so perfect.
But thinking ahead of time on the options that you are going to be presenting your child, making sure that tags are already cut out, that anything that could be modified to be as sensory sensitive for them as possible, doing that before they even try it on.
But I would recommend letting them have something that feels comfortable on when they try on the costume for the first time so that we can figure out what is going to fit their sensory needs better and set them up for success there. Involving them in the costume process is also great. There were many times where we made a costume for my brother out of very, very few materials. He always wanted to be like a Transformer or some kind of Bionicle, and it didn't matter that it was like a perfect costume, but it was comfortable to him, something that he could stay in for a few hours. And I found that if he was involved in that process, like creating that costume for himself, like sometimes with those Transformers, we had boxes that he would make those for himself. And because he knew what to expect and he was involved in that process, it really helped him from the sensory side being able to know what to expect and the fact that he was involved in creating that for himself so that we could tailor it to his needs while we were making that for him.
I think it's also important to remember that your child doesn't have to have candy during Halloween. There are many other alternatives that we can use, and I like to use sensory tool alternatives to candy. These can be small fidget toys, textured toys, squishy items, all these things that you can buy off of Amazon, glow sticks, light up items. You could even do little mini dinosaurs or little mini figurines as well. My son really likes Cars right now, like the movie, and at Target they have like a pack of 15 of the little tiny mini diecast cars that are really great as like an alternative option for a little treat at Halloween. And I know for a fact he would rather have one of those than something random that he's getting in his Halloween basket. So just these little mini toys. That could be a good idea for your child that they may actually end up enjoying more. Stickers, temporary tattoos, though I also get it as a parent if we're not wanting to give them those temporary tattoos, because I know they can take a long time to come off as well.
And then one last thing I'd like to talk about is just additional tips for successful Halloween, preparing for the day ahead of time, talking about what to expect and the days leading up if you haven't already. Social stories, visual schedules for them to understand.
I've even had people use chat GPT for social stories and what to expect for Halloween and talking through your experience and what you'll be doing and how to create that for your child. So definitely looking into that. If your child does really well with being briefed ahead of time on what to expect, really setting some clear expectations, time limits as well so that you can have a watch that tracks okay, we've been out for 20 minutes. That is the perfect amount of time to set them up for success and really end on a high note, and then also preparing ahead of time with any other caregivers or partners about what your exit strategy is. I think that's always a good idea of prepping ahead of time of what that regulation strategy looks like, and even having a little bag that you bring with you to Halloween that maybe has some preferred foods in it, has some regulating activities, has some noise-cancelling headphones, whatever that means for your child that can really help regulate them because Halloween can be really dysregulating and it also can be really surprising. And you may not know what to expect as a parent too, going into the Halloween experience. And there can be some unpredictable experiences that happen.
This is going to be out of every child's routine. We do not typically go from house to house picking out candy every single day. So letting them know that we are going to have our typical routine throughout the day, trying to stick to your typical routine as much as possible, and then having some kind of visual schedule or visual calendar to let them know what to expect. I would also recommend building in some decompression time after trick or treating and having a solid 30 to 60 minutes when they come home, ideally getting closer to 60 minutes before they go down for bed, so that they can decompress, and calm down from this really stimulating activity and having something planned for them that you know is regulating for your child, whether or not that's screen time or some kind of physical activity that can help bring them down and is really regulating to them. Perhaps that's a sensory swing or something that you've prepared them ahead of time: we are going to go trick or treating. Next, we're gonna come home. We are going to have a snack, and we are going to do our sensory swing, and then we are going to start our bedtime routine.
I think that can be really helpful. Lastly, communicating with your neighbors can be a really good idea ahead of time.
Your neighbors might already know you and your child, but if not, it could be a good idea to give them a little bit of a heads up that your child will be trick or treating and maybe that looks a little bit different for them. They may not be able to stay out loud, "trick or treat", but they will be carrying their AAC device and they'll be communicating trick or treat over their AAC device.
Maybe you can send them a little text or leave a little note for them to know what to expect and this could help them be a little bit more inclusive as well.
All in all, I just want you to remember that Halloween is so much more than just candy and trick or treating. It is an opportunity for a social experience for your child and to practice some of those social skills and to build fun memories for you and your family too. Even if you're only out 10 or 15 minutes, that is still a really great amount of time to expose them to something new and to have fun dressing up as something that they love. And I also think that it's a great time to raise awareness and inclusivity, maybe, perhaps for your neighbors, and expose them to different communication styles, like trick-or-treating through an AAC device or through an adaptive costume, or helping just raise awareness for autism as a whole. I have some past clients who their kiddos don't love going out trick or treating, but they really love handing out candy to other people and seeing costumes and so if that feels more comfortable for your child as well, being the one who gets to hand out the candy, rather than going out too. I think that that's a really great way to, again, practice those social skills and help getting them involved in Halloween as well, in a way that feels more regulating to them. I hope you all have a great Halloween. I cannot wait to see all of the costumes and, I also invite you to share your own Halloween tips or questions. On my stories, I will be posting a prompt today to share some of the big tips that you have for Halloween that might help others as they go into trick or treating. I hope you all have a great Halloween and I look forward to chatting with you next week.
Again, if you haven't gotten on the wait list for Food Hopper, my upcoming app to help you expand your child's diet in a sensory friendly way and a way that removes so much of the mental load as a parent trying to come up with creative ideas and tracking new food exposures,
I would love for you to join the wait list. You can learn more at foodhopper.co or by messaging me on Instagram "Food Hopper", and I would love to send you the details.
Transcribed by Descript
About Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD
Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, is a distinguished Registered Dietitian and Autism Nutrition Expert, known for her innovative, sensory-friendly feeding approach to nutrition for children on the autism spectrum. As the founder of the Nourishing Autism Collective, and as an autism sibling herself, Brittyn brings both professional expertise and personal understanding to her work. She empowers families with her expert guidance, helping children receive essential nutrients for optimal health and development. Her strategies are tailored to the unique dietary needs and sensory preferences of each child.
Brittyn's influence extends beyond her membership site through her active social media presence and her popular podcast, 'Nourishing Autism'. Her educational content on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms has established her as a leading voice in autism nutrition, providing valuable resources, practical advice, and a supportive community for parents and professionals.
