First foods and allergen tracker

What the four pages do

I kept one of these for about eight months and needed it twice, both times sitting in a GP’s room being asked something I could not answer.

Page one is the general record. What was offered, how it was served, how it went and whether to try it again. The response options are enjoyed, neutral, refused and possible reaction, rather than liked and disliked, because a refusal on Tuesday means very little and children often need a food offered many times before it’s familiar.

Page two is the allergen chart, covering all fourteen allergens that UK food law requires to be declared, with a star against the ones usually considered during early introduction.

Page three is the one most allergen charts leave out, and the reason this exists.

Page four is a proper reaction record, in the sense that a health professional could read it and learn something.

Introduction isn’t a single event

The common weakness of an allergen chart is that it invites you to introduce a food once, tick a box, and consider the job done.

That isn’t what the guidance asks for. Once an allergenic food has been introduced without a reaction, the advice is to keep offering it as part of your child’s usual diet. Page three is simply a grid of dates for doing that, so the foods stay visible rather than disappearing behind a tick from four months ago.

It deliberately doesn’t tell you how often. That depends on your child, and it’s a question for your health visitor, GP or dietitian rather than a printable.

Why it never says safe

Every column that could have said safe, passed or cleared says no reaction observed instead.

That’s a meaningful difference. One uneventful exposure is a fact about one occasion. It isn’t a verdict, and a sheet that implies otherwise would be doing something it has no business doing.

The reaction record is the page to know about

Most food trackers give a reaction one narrow column. This gives it a full page, because if you ever need it you’ll be trying to remember detail under stress.

It covers the exposure itself, including brand and ingredients, symptoms grouped by skin, mouth and throat, stomach, breathing and general behaviour, when symptoms started and how long they lasted, what you did, and what happened afterwards.

At the foot of that page there’s an emergency panel. Call 999 immediately if a child develops sudden swelling of the mouth, throat or tongue, difficulty breathing or swallowing, becomes very pale, blue or grey, collapses, or becomes limp, floppy or unusually unresponsive. Deal with the emergency first, and fill the sheet in afterwards.

Before you start

Speak to a healthcare professional first if your baby has significant eczema, an existing food allergy, or you have been told they may be at higher risk. That’s on page two at the top for the same reason it’s here.

Never give whole nuts to a child under five, because of the choking risk. Nuts and peanuts belong in an age-appropriate form, finely ground or as a smooth butter thinned down.

The limits of this sheet

It’s a record you keep, and that’s all it claims to be. Nothing on it tests or diagnoses anything, and a completed sheet proves nothing either way. What it does is become useful the moment somebody asks you a question you can’t answer from memory.

If a reaction means a dose of antihistamine, the medication record is where the times go, especially if somebody else is doing a day.

The guidance on the sheet follows NHS and Food Standards Agency information, checked in September 2026. If you think your child has a food allergy, speak to your GP or health visitor, and don’t deliberately offer a suspected food again before you have.