This is something that should be obvious to you all, but might not be.

[conuly]

Don't give your kid just anything to use as a teething toy.

I'm thinking specifically of a 7 month old baby I saw today mouthing on a bottle of hand sanitizer. And no, I don't care if her parents think she can't get into it yet - it's a flip-top, it's in her mouth, she can totally swallow some of that while they're not looking.

This is what Snopes has to say about it. That stuff has a very high concentration of alcohol, because otherwise it can't kill germs. (And there's another thing - you only reach for the sanitizer when you're sure that your hands are filthy. So the outside of the bottle is, I'm sure, filthy. Common sense!)

So when I go up to them and explain how it's incredibly unsafe and even says on the packaging to keep away from children under the age of 3 (well, nearly everything says that nowadays, but you know what I mean) - please just listen. I'm not freaking out for my own amusement. I actually believe that girl was in imminent danger.

(This tops the "I don't care if my kid puts her garbage in every toy in the room, I'll still feed her in here because if you watched your several kids (four altogether) you wouldn't have a problem with the food lying all over the floor" woman of two days ago, by the way. Well, maybe not. She was acting less mature than Ana, who at least understands the need to set a good example.)

Comments

[conuly]

I actually don't mind germs that much. But poison is poison, y'know. I wouldn't stop somebody to tell them that their keys are dangerous to the baby, or the phone is gonna get broken, but this time... I honestly was scared that this kid was going to end up in the hospital.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they'd let the kid use a bottle of liquor as a teething device. It'd probably have a lower alcohol content than the hand sanitizer, if it's a decent hand sanitizer. What's your average baby's alcohol tolerance? I'm not sure as I haven't been giving beer to babies... foolish of me to have not gotten that research done...

[conuly]

You really ought to!