How Much Is Too Much Candy on Halloween?

My rule was always that as long as they ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner they could eat as much or as little candy as they wanted. We scrubbed those little teeth like crazy just to be on the safe side but there really wasn't a candy limit at my house. When it was gone it was gone.

mine are 14 and 16 - I tell them to take it easy, spread it out.

When they were younger? we let them have about 5 pieces.

Seriously? I just let them go for it. I'm actually glad if it's gone within a week or even a few days, isn't parenting hard enough without policing candy every day for weeks and weeks after Halloween is over?
Also if your kids are VERY small you can control how much they get. If you don't want them to have so much don't take them to so many houses.

To the victor go the spoils. They worked hard to trick-or-treat, the candy is theirs, to eat as they choose. Usual rules about bedtime and eating balanced meals are still in effect!

My kids are 13, 11 & 8 & I'm more of a time person, I guess. I let them have at it for a bit and then when I feel they've had enough I tell them pick 1 more & let's put it up till tomorrow. Usually most of the fun happens just by looking at all their loot in all its glory & then trading with eachother...so basically letting them play in it & you'd be surprised how much not eating of it happens!

I suggest 2-3 pieces. My daughter has each child pour out their loot. The kids remove all the noncandy loot. THEY can play with that. They count the candy, separate what they want to keep, what they'll have that night and tomorrow. AGAIN 2-3 pieces. THEN Dad.puts the rest away where kids can't easily get it. He then uses it as treats after dinner. One piece. He is a softie. TREATS during day some days too

Perhaps because they started this from the beginning, the kids accept it. :) But not without pleading.

Three pieces . Although my son went nuts one year and got so sick. He learned what his max is, for sure..

ohh the fun week of the year next to Easter!

My second youngest learned the hard way about too much candy. He got really sick and threw up a whole night. He tried to eat his whole bag because he thought his brothers would try and take it away from him.

Depending upon the size of the candy? We usually say no more than 10 pieces. They must eat a full meal before they go trick-or-treating.

I always let them eat as much as they wanted, so they could get rid of it in a couple of days. I figured it was better to gorge on candy for a couple of days than to eat it daily for a month.

On Halloween proper I don't set a limit, same with other special occasions where they get candy. They rarely eat more than maybe 5 pieces at most before they are good. Considering how much walking we tend to do, that's not too bad and they've burned a lot of it off. A few pieces of those total pieces are often eaten before we get home if they come from the immediate neighbors we know well. From there, they get a couple pieces a day or so depending on what pieces they are choosing and what we're doing. I'd rather it be gone quickly instead of linger around the house for months at a time so we aren't stingy on rationing it out. We don't have candy in the house most of the time so it stays a short lived special treat.

I'm pretty conservative. My kids can pick out about 3 pieces if they are smaller, or 1 if it's a full size candy bar. They then sort out what they want to keep from what they don't want. And then they can have 1 small piece a night until it runs out. And usually I'll put a piece in their lunch for a treat. That usually takes them until almost Christmas to go through it all.

ETA: I agree with others - for my kids, neither of whom has a big sweet tooth, the fun parts are running around the neighborhood with friends and then sorting and trading afterwards. They don't don't seem to care at all when I tell them to just pick a few to eat at a time.

How much candy can you eat before bed without feeling sick? Personally 3-5 pieces is about all I can eat before I would start to feel queasy. Then they eat a piece a day until it is gone.

Since it is Monday and school is tomorrow for us, I will start earlier and have them in bed earlier than a weekend Halloween night. I would rather they had 3 items before 8pm than one item after 10pm.

I didn't set a limit for my kid. I also didn't keep a lot of candy in the house all the time.
So on "candy holidays" - Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, Christmas - she was allowed to eat all she wanted, and she knew that when it was gone, it was gone, and candy would only be a rare occasional thing until the next candy holiday. She learned to limit herself in order to make her candy last.

My son's not a huge sweet tooth.
We've generally not had to restrict it at all.
Just luck I guess.
We've never made "goodies" a big deal OR a taboo.
He limits himself.
It's always been more about the "going trick or treating" than the candy, itself.
Many years, he just forgets about it in a few days & it "goes away"! LOL

With little ones who have not yet developed self-control I'd tell them to pick a number of items then I'd put the bags up to supervise future eating. For me, it wasn't even about sugar/junk, I just didn't want to clean up a sick mess.

With older kids, they know better than to eat candy before dinner or overdo into a stomach ache, so they supervise themselves. They are good at spacing it out and sometimes end up tossing stale Halloween candy as Valentine's day approaches.

Kiddo is nine and going out with Dad and a friend tonight. (I'm going out to dinner with a friend! ) I'm guessing he'll eat a couple pieces on his trick or treat walking, a couple pieces at home, leave a bunch for the Halloween Fairy (she trades candy for gifts... he likes her very much and so do we) and have one or two pieces for the next few days--- and then forget about it.

On short notice, I'd use the age rule - a 3 year old can have 3 pieces of treat-size candy, a 5 year old can have 5 pieces (if anyone gets a full size 8 ounce candy bar, that doesn't count!). Followed by serious tooth-brushing.

Do separate out the toys - in our neighborhood, half of us don't even give candy because we have a diabetic kid plus those with allergies, and for everyone else it just gets thrown away anyhow. So let the kids play with the stickers and Halloween puzzles/pencils, wear the spider rings, and toot the kazoos. Do some "triage" on the candy, choosing what to eat now, what to save for rationing out over the week, what to give away, etc. The food pantries will take the leftovers (though they'd prefer nutritious food), and we have a few area dentists who collect the leftovers and send them to deployed troops (who presumably can monitor their own candy intake!). If you can find anyone in your town who does this, it wouldn't hurt to have the kids think of those who don't have what they have.

I pretty much allow mine to go crazy on Halloween night. For the next few days it's pick one for lunch and one or two at night. Then I make it disappear. Usually through my husband's belly - hahaha!!

i like threes. let them pick three of their favorites (assuming they're not tiny) and put the rest up.
khairete
S.

If you decide to set limits consider sending your unwanted candy to operation gratitude they send it in care packages to our troops, their families, and to veterans.

Best
F. B.

I've always allowed the to have a few pieces each night. There are also a lot of the candy they won't like so it's not like they have hundreds of candy bars, they have bite size bits of candy that are tasty, for the most part.