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Our GAPS Journey

We started GAPS as a family in July 2024, shortly after I had my fifth child.

The first six weeks were horrible. This is why we began, what happened in our home, and what changed over time.

This is one family’s experience. It is not a promise that another family will have the same result.

By Ebonie · Updated September 2026

I had read stories that gave me hope. I still was not prepared for how hard the beginning would be when it was our own family living through it.

Some early changes encouraged us. We were also exhausted. One child’s skin got worse, and another child’s distress still felt overwhelming. I want to tell you about the hard weeks too because they are part of why the later changes mattered so much.

I homeschool before work, work full time, and have six children. Our family’s health experiences include eczema in three of our children, mood and psychological disorders, weight-maintenance difficulties, seasonal and food allergies, asthma, constipation, migraines, speech delays, and picky eating. Those experiences are the life behind this site.

Finding GAPS
Starting in July 2024
Preparing Our Home
The First Week
Weeks Two Through Six
Eczema and Topical Steroids
After Six Weeks
Speech and Communication
Changes Across Our Family
Picky Eating
The Rest of Our Routine
What I Wish I Had Known
Our Next Chapter
Books and Further Reading
References
New to GAPS?

Finding GAPS

One of our children was two years old and could say only a few words. She screamed and cried constantly. It was overwhelming, and I was trying to understand how to help her as her speech delay became more apparent.

While researching, I kept seeing gut health and the GAPS diet. I looked into them briefly, then moved on. GAPS did not become our plan the first time I encountered it.

A few months later, another one of our children developed eczema. I began researching again, and the same subjects appeared: gut health and GAPS. This time I went much deeper, and I was blown away by what I was reading.

The GAPS material gave me a different way to look at problems I had assumed were genetic or fixed. I began to believe that gut disruption could be part of the picture. Changing our food and supporting gut health gave me hope that we might not have to accept every problem as permanent.

Starting in July 2024

We decided to try GAPS as a family in July 2024, shortly after I gave birth to my fifth child. I was not beginning in a quiet stretch of life. I had just had a baby, and we had several children with different needs.

We chose to follow Intro^[1], the staged beginning of the GAPS diet, closely. The plan changed not only the meals we made but what was available in our home.

Preparing Our Home

The day before we began, we made our big Stage 1 shopping trip and cleared the house of foods that did not fit GAPS. We intended to follow the diet closely and wanted the food at home to match that decision.

We moved slowly through the stages. Much of our pace was guided by our child with eczema and whether we thought she was ready to move forward. We were not assigning a new stage to each day or moving ahead simply because a week had passed.

The First Week

During the first week, I noticed a considerable drop in weight and bloating. I welcomed that change. It was one of the first differences I could feel and felt good about.

Several of us were very tired and needed rest. The beginning was not simply a burst of energy that made everything easier. Some changes were encouraging while other parts of the week asked more of us than I had expected.

I had also just given birth, so that first week held the changes of a newly postpartum season alongside the changes we were making as a family.

Weeks Two Through Six

By the second week, the child with speech delay and the child with eczema were both having a harder time. That difficult stretch continued through week six.

The eczema had already been widespread before we began. During those weeks, it appeared in places where we had not seen it before, including the face. Watching skin worsen after beginning something with so much hope was difficult.

The constant screaming and crying were still overwhelming too. We were not seeing a simple, steady improvement each day. Some of us noticed changes we liked while two of our children were going through a particularly hard period.

That is why those first six weeks stay so clear in my memory. Everyone experienced the beginning a little differently, with some overlap, and it was much harder than I had known to expect.

Eczema and Topical Steroids

Between discovering the eczema and beginning GAPS, we had used topical steroids. We stopped them abruptly, cold turkey.

At the same time, we were changing food and trying to identify food triggers. I understood that difficult period as a combination of food withdrawal, possible topical steroid withdrawal, and the work of finding which foods were causing trouble. Topical steroid withdrawal was not diagnosed by a clinician; it was my interpretation of part of what we were seeing.

The medication history matters to our story because it was happening alongside the food changes. The sequence I remember is eczema before GAPS, topical steroid use, the worsening stretch around weeks two through six, and then the change that followed.

After Six Weeks

After those first six weeks, the eczema was gone. The skin had been affected in so many places and had looked worse during the weeks before it cleared.

That was an enormous change to witness as a parent. It is one of the reasons GAPS remained important to our family. If I only told you that the skin cleared, though, I would leave out the part I had not felt prepared for: the weeks when it spread and the beginning felt so difficult.

Speech and Communication

By the end of that early period, our child was no longer screaming nonstop in the same way. It had not completely disappeared in six weeks, but it had become manageable. Within a few months, the constant screaming was gone.

We also began hearing more and more words. Alongside the food changes, we were doing exercises and using material from Agents of Speech^[2]. That work was part of her progress too.

The changes had different timelines. Six weeks was an important point for the eczema and the intensity of the screaming, while the language work and further improvements continued over the following months.

Changes Across Our Family

The rest of us felt tremendously better as we continued. We were less groggy and did not feel so weighed down by the junk food we had been eating so often.

Two of our little ones who had struggled with eating also gained a healthy amount of weight. That was another change I was glad to see.

My own early experience included losing weight and bloating, while for two of our children, gaining weight was welcome. We were making changes together, but we were still separate people with different starting points and needs.

Picky Eating

Because we had cleared out the non-GAPS foods, the children did not have their usual alternatives available. We served the meals we made for the plan. There was resistance. It became a battle of wills, and we were determined to follow the plan long enough to judge it fairly.

Eventually, the children ate the food. Later, they came to love it too. I remember that change alongside how difficult the beginning had been. It did not feel easy while we were in it, but we held to the meals we had decided to make.

The Rest of Our Routine

During that period, we also added Smidge probiotics, cod liver and butter oils, TRS spray, Aalgo seaweed baths, detox baths, and filtered water using a Berkey system.

Food was a major change, and it was not the only one. The products, routines, and speech exercises were all part of what our family was doing during those months.

What I Wish I Had Known

I wish I had found an account that made room for a beginning this difficult. I needed more than an appealing food list or a brief description of the improvements someone eventually saw.

I would have wanted the tiredness mentioned, the difficult weeks included, and the different experiences within one family explained. I would have wanted to hear about the later improvements without skipping over how long the beginning felt.

I am sharing both parts because you deserve to know what the beginning looked like before you read about the changes that came later.

Our Next Chapter

As I write this in September 2026, we are preparing to begin Intro again as a family. My youngest son is six months old and is showing signs of eczema. I also want to document Baby GAPS, with his feeding given its own baby-specific plan and attention alongside what the older members of our family are doing.

This time, I want to keep a clearer record of the meals, stages, practical difficulties, and individual experiences as they happen. I remember a great deal about our first six weeks, but writing at the time can preserve details that memory alone does not.

GAPS became deeply meaningful to our family. The beginning was also much harder than I knew to expect. Both are true.

Books and Further Reading

For a fuller explanation of GAPS, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride’s Gut and Psychology Syndrome and Gut and Physiology Syndrome^[3] set out the ideas and nutritional approach behind the food changes discussed here.

The GAPS Science Foundation’s published studies^[4] bring together related research. A 2024 retrospective report about eight people with inflammatory bowel disorders^[5] describes reported changes in digestive symptoms and associated conditions, including eczema. It is further reading on the gut-and-skin questions that first brought me back to GAPS, alongside our own personal account.

References

New to GAPS?

Read the plain-language guide first, then use the food list to see how the Introduction Diet and Full GAPS are organized. This page is our story. The guides explain the terms and stages.

Start with Start Here for the guides and practical first steps. For guided preparation, explore Understanding & Preparing for the GAPS Diet.