Dylan Dreyer’s life revolves around her three young sons, and she’s forever looking at finding new ways to help make life easier for her oldest son Calvin, seven, who has celiac disease.
The Today Show star recently found out how much easier it was to find gluten-free products in the UK during her working trip to cover Royal Ascot across the pond, and has spoken to HELLO! about the struggles she faces finding affordable food items for her son over in America.
Discussing the idea of spending more time in the UK in the future if the occasion should ever arise, Dylan admitted that it would certainly be something she would consider for this very reason.
She said: “I think it would be an easy transition if I ever were to go out there [to the UK] and my life revolves around my kids and with Calvin having celiac disease. It’s honestly all I think about. All I have to do is feed kids all day long and it’s hard to feed him sometimes. It would just be fun to experiment and try to live there and see how much easier it would be to live with kids there.”
The NBC star was full of praise towards the UK grocery stores, and couldn’t believe her luck that she not only managed to fill an entire shopping trolley with gluten-free products, but that it cost so much less too: “I just want to say kudos to Waitrose and so many of the grocery stores in the UK, because I don’t know if [celiac disease] is not taken as seriously, but it’s more of a nuisance in the United States, you have to really hunt to find items.
“It’s getting better, but to go into Waitrose and there’s a basic gluten-free flour, not made with anything expensive… The fact that I can order it on Amazon for $20, or I can buy it in Waitrose for £2 ($3),was absolutely shocking. All I did was fill up my suitcase with mostly flour – and then treats are different; he biscuits and the cookies and just the bread, oh my gosh!”
© InstagramThe star added: “I spent £40 ($50) [on everything] and the flip side of that is to order that exact flour on Amazon, it’s $40 just for two packs. Such a difference and I wish it was easier here in the United States and it’s not, it’s very frustrating. So, part of the reason I want to bring my family over to the UK is because it’s just easier; it’s kind of a nuisance to have celiac disease and it wouldn’t be as much of a nuisance over there.”
Whether she plans to move there in the future or not, Dylan is still keen to bring her three sons, Calvin, seven, Oliver, four, and Rusty, two, to the UK in the near future. The star has a loyal following on social media who adore seeing updates on her family life, and very much enjoy how real Dylan is.
The TV host has a can-do attitude but is also incredibly relaxed, choosing to embrace the chaos, making for a happy family unit as a result. On her top tips for traveling with young children, Dylan had a simple answer – involve the grandparents.
She said: “You can enlist someone else in your family, like my mother, and father-in-law will drop everything to travel with us. It makes it so much easier to travel with grandparents.
“I’m very lucky to have grandparents who are willing to travel with us and help. But I also think when you’re on vacation with your kids, you’re not home, you don’t have laundry to do, you don’t have bills to pay so just embrace the vacation, stop thinking of all the things you want to do, or you have to do.
“Kids are fine running up and down the hallway of the hotel. They’re fine jumping in the pool, even if it’s nothing fancy, so you just go with the flow a little bit.”
She added: “We also just do what they want to do. If they want to stay up late and watch TV, why not? I think that’s kind of how we approach vacation, we let them eat whatever they want. We let them call the shots and do whatever they want, and it just makes it easier and less stressful for everyone involved.”
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