You know those days. You wake up to your kid screaming over an hour before they normally wake up. To top it off, you feel terribly sick (curse you ragweed). That was the beginning of my day last Thursday.
I set Jude up watching SuperWhy on the laptop in my room so I could take a quick uninterrupted shower. I finished up and peeked around the door to make sure he was still doing ok. Except he had a bottle of afrin that I had grabbed from the medicine closet around 2am (and had since forgotten about) and by the looks of it, sprayed it all over my bed and likely in his own mouth.
Blind panic.
I snatched the bottle out of his hand, tried to smell his breath, but couldn’t because – of course – I was so sick that I couldn’t smell anything and double of course, Jason had already left for work. Let me advise you, what I did next is not a good idea. I googled ’3 year old ingest afrin’. Bad idea. All I remember seeing was ‘death’ and my head just about exploded.
I called poison control to find out what to do next and talked the lady through what I had found my kid with. We determined from the amount of the medicine on the bed and how little was in the bottle before he got to it that he hadn’t ingested anything to be concerned about. Feed him a heavy breakfast to dilute any medicine in his system and keep a close eye on him the rest of the morning. Worst case he’s cranky and sleepy.
After I got over my panic induced sobbing episode, I called his MDO and told them we weren’t going to be there and why. I quickly got a story about how her youngest boy drank tea tree oil when he was 9 months old.
Then, I called my mom and got the story of how when I was 2, I climbed up on the counter and drank a bottle of perfume.
What the crap? Are kids trying to give their parents aneurisms?
He’s totally fine now and was fine the whole day of this crazy episode. My guess is that he sprayed it in his mouth once and it tasted so gross that one insignificant spray was all he ingested. It’s way more fun to spray it all over the bed.
It happens to everyone, right?
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I’m so sorry Beth! Julia did play with the Comet one day. I think she may have tasted some of it, but didn’t get much in her mouth for the same reason. But it was EVERYWHERE! I through her in the bath and called poison control. Those people are great at calming panicked mothers. I then googled to see if they were going to call CPS on me.
So glad he’s okay!!
Google is probably the cause of many heart attacks of mothers of young children. It’s never a good idea to google sicknesses or events like this one – the results are always terrifying!
The lady I talked to at poison control was a kinda demeaning. She couldn’t seem to understand how he got his hands on the Afrin. It made me feel worse hence the panic induced sobbing session. I mean, I already was calling myself all kinds of names in my head! ‘Worse parent of the year award goes to . . . ‘ And then I felt much better after talking to his MDO teacher. It happens to everyone.
It DOES happen to everyone…and it is not just medicines or cleaning products. This is how it went down at my house: jagged sequin falls unnoticed to the floor. 9-month Aaron puts shiny thing in his mouth and swallows. Sequin sticks in throat, causing gagging and choking noises. Mom hangs son over the heel of her hand for a baby-heimlich. Out pops sequin, then the tears begin–his and mine. Yeah, what a day.
Oh, Hon!! My heart goes out to you. I’m glad everything resolved OK, I’m also glad that you got to hear from other mothers (on the phone and on this blog!) to help you remember that accidents happen. And yeah, our kids ARE out to get us – ’cause then they get all our stuff, right?
Isn’t it amazingly awesome how quick poison control answers? Been there too.
I’ve had to call four different times now, and we keep everything locked up. Sometimes life just happens and kids can be so quick! Once my son grabbed and bit through the aluminum tube of diaper cream I was using while I was still changing his diaper. I felt like a rotten mother enough with a polite poison control operator… I can’t imagine how horrible I would have felt with one with an attitude. So sorry you had that experience, but I’m glad your son is just fine!
Glad all is well! My brother wasn’t so lucky. When he was around 2 he climbed up a dresser and tasted lemon oil. He did not swallow it, but he got instant lung pneumonia. A week in the hospital and he was fine… then later he got a marble stuck in his throat… stitches on his chin…. broke his arm… stitches on his neck… he was the problem child
All Ellie’s eaten (that we know of) so far is bugs and sea shells. And we’ve each pulled a cigarette butt out of her mouth (EWWW) and I thankfully saw she had a safety pin in her mouth before she could swallow. But Jason once swallowed an OPEN safety pin when he was about 2. It got stuck in his throat, so he was coughing up blood. At the hospital, they stuck something down his throat, closed the safety pin, and pulled it back out. Crazy. Yes, it does happen to everyone. But it’s still scary!