Back to School : Naturally Sweet Sisters Free Lunch Carb Counts Sheet

The joys of school lunch!


 

This week, I am focusing on sending our children safely off to school.  It's an enormous task and one that even as a seasoned type 1 diabetes parent, still dreads!  I would much rather have my little girls home with me.  But to school they must go, especially if they are going to achieve those lofty career goals of pilot, dolphin-trainer, singer, interior decorator, fashionista and as always, pediatric endocrinologist and scientist that will one day cure type 1 diabetes!

Yesterday, I gave you a free chart on how to have school staff understand type 1 diabetes at a glance.

Today, I giving you a free sheet for counting carbs for school lunches. 

My kids prefer to have their lunch packed my mom every morning.  While they are certainly old enough to manage this task on their own, I like being able to make sure that they are getting good, sound nutrition and a nice balance of carbs to protein.  I feel much better knowing that they have their carbs pre-counted and that all they will need to do is check blood sugar, eat food and enter carb totals into their pumps to be bloused with insulin.  It's still a lot of extra steps that most kids do not have to do, so making lunch seems like a very small task to give them at least one break in the work load of type 1 diabetes care management.

Now on my sheet, you will notice that I have the 'lunch box item' which is the food that I packed, the Portion Amount in Lunch Box, which is how many that I packed, the number of carbs for each item, and the total Full Serving of Carbs. 

In that way, if I packed 20 grapes, and my little three-year old only ate 10, her aide would know to dose her at the rate of 1 carb each for a total amount of 10 carbs.  The aide would then carry that information over to the yellow box and send it back home in my daughter's lunch box for me to review.  The next time that I packed her lunch, I might even opt to pack less grapes.

You might be wondering at why I chose to dose after lunch in that scenario.  Well, when my daughter was younger, eating was unpredictable.  The safest way that I could think of was to post-meal bolus.  For us, it worked and now as both girls have grown, they have the maturity to know how much they want and to bolus ahead of time.  For our family, that seems to have happened around age 9.  You may have children ready earlier or later, as everyone is different.

Now that both of my girls have reached that older latitude, I still keep the same information because there are days where they are more or less hungry.  They can see what I packed, add up what they want to eat and leave the rest.  Sometimes, the leftovers become and after-school snack and in that case, the carbs are pre-counted and ready to go. 

This will be the first year for my youngest daughter to not have an aide looking over her shoulder, so I plan on adapting the card to remove the yellow box. 

You can also use this sheet as a tool for the school to calculate the carbs in the cafeteria lunch.  Have them write it down and then, send home with your child for you to review. 

I'll let you know how it goes with her being solo for the first time in about seven years.....  wish us luck!

Tomorrow, look for another handy idea on school lunch time.

 

Carb Counts for School Lunch (Must Use to Calculate Insulin Dose)
						For Office Use
Lunch Box Item	Portion Amount In Lunch Box	# of Carb Each	Full Serving Total Carb			Actual # of Carbs Eaten
Questions?  Call Parent at ________________	BG_______	Total # of Carbs Packed			Total Actual # of Carbs Eaten
Name:					Date:___________
Carb Counts for School Lunch (Must Use to Calculate Insulin Dose)
						For Office Use
Lunch Box Item	Portion Amount In Lunch Box	# of Carb Each	Full Serving Total Carb			Actual # of Carbs Eaten
Questions?  Call Parent at ________________	BG_______	Total # of Carbs Packed			Total Actual # of Carbs Eaten
Name:					Date:___________
Carb Counts for School Lunch (Must Use to Calculate Insulin Dose)
						For Office Use
Lunch Box Item	Portion Amount In Lunch Box	# of Carb Each	Full Serving Total Carb			Actual # of Carbs Eaten
Questions?  Call Parent at ________________	BG_______	Total # of Carbs Packed			Total Actual # of Carbs Eaten