12/04/2023
I’m FINALLY posting our story. I’m sorry it’s long.
December 20, 2021 was one of the hardest days as a parent I have ever had. My three year old daughter had a 2 hour night terror. It was violent. It was terrifying. I had no idea what to do, I was ready to rush her to the emergency room.
You see, she was living it up with all of the holiday and birthday parties, holiday candies, and special treats. I never once thought about artificial dyes, until that night. That night, I felt like a failure as a mother. I’m a teacher, I have a college degree in child development and I DID NOT know what to do with my own child. I give parenting advice for a living, but here I was feeling helpless with my own child.
Once the screaming, kicking, hitting, and crying subsided, I started searching my brain (at 2:30 am, because who can sleep after that) for ANYTHING that could help my sweet baby girl. That’s when it hit me, a mom that I babysat for a long time ago, jokingly mentioned that her kids could not have red dye 40. I thought to myself, if she was joking about it, that means someone, somewhere people do not let their kids have red dye 40. So… I did what anyone would do, Google “red dye 40 reactions in children.”
What I found was TERRIFYING! The aggression, night terrors, and misbehavior all made sense. Three was a hard year for us. I made the decision at 3:00 in the morning to eliminate ALL artificial dyes from her diet.
She did a complete 180 within 72 hours. We had our sweet, happy, and obedient baby girl back. (She is a normal 4 year old, she misbehaves, but NOTHING like she did when she was overloaded with dyes)
Since then, we have had a few accidents where she ingested artificial dye and the next two weeks were HORRENDOUS.
I’m not going to lie, it has been a difficult journey, but seeing our baby girl happy and healthy is 1000% percent worth it.
I have created this page to help parents who want to learn more about the dangers of artificial dye. I hope that I can help make your dye free journey a little easier. 💕
I’m happy to answer any questions through messenger or comments.
