With the holidays, often times comes traveling. That means taking your curious toddler to a different place. This weekend, we had one of those life altering, scare the daylights out of you kind of moments. The worst part, I was trying to be a good mom and make sure this exact thing didn’t happen. Because I think it’s so important, I will share with you all my mommy fail.
We made it to the cabin at around 130 am Thanksgiving morning. Put the kids in bed, socialized for a few hours, and finally slept. We hadn’t unpacked anything. Maggie decided to help. She got into our bag of clothes which also had my vitamins in it. She brought me my fish oil vitamins, so I tucked them under my pillow and didn’t think anything more about it right then. We got up and went about our day. When I went to put her to bed later that night, I remembered that my vitamins were in the bag and I should take out the other two bottles and put them all up out of her reach. I set them up on the bed and looked for something else in the bag that I knew was in there.
My sister walked in and asked if that was my vitamins Maggie had. I looked up and Maggie had one in her mouth. She had opened the “childproof” iron tablets and helped herself. You could see the bluish color on her mouth. I told her to spit it out immediately – usually, this works if she finds something to stick in her mouth that she can’t have. She started crying. I picked her up to snuggle her and read the bottle. “Warning: Iron overdose is one of the leading causes of death in children under 6 years of age.” *Panic*
I called poison control, all the while feeling like the worlds worst mom. The lady does the math…has me count all of the pills even though I told her this was pointless since I had no clue how many were in the bottle. She said as long as she hadn’t eaten 6 or more, she should be fine. Now…at this point, it’s 1030 pm. She tells me to keep Maggie awake for at least 2 hours and then check on her hourly for another 4 hours. Watch for signs of unresponsiveness, stomachaches, diarrhea. 2 1/2 hours later, when we were going to put Maggie to bed, she got crazy!!! Seriously, crazy, but a good crazy. She goes up to the table…I want a cookie. No Maggie, no cookies tonight. Okay – I want cake…I want cake…I want cake. Over and over and starting running into circles. Turns out, she is fine. I didn’t sleep much that night because I was still worried about her. If any of you have ever been in a situation like this, you can imagine how I was feeling! I went to get them out of her reach, and unknowingly gave them to her. I’m not a bad mama, I swear!!! A few weeks ago, a good friend had to take her daughter to the ER because she got ahold of a bottle of Vicodin. I was worried (she was fine, never got into them), but also thought, how do you let that happen….they happen to be going through funeral arrangements, so others were around then too. It happens in a second. Your first thought when you get some place isn’t your medications/vitamins; or even what others may have in their purse that is readily accessible to your kids.
Moral of the story – when traveling, remember to keep all vitamins and medications out of reach. Those little ones are really sneaky! Keep the poison control number handy just in case.
1-800-222-1222
Enjoy the holiday season and be safe!
Have you ever had to call poison control?
We did have to call back in April. I was huge and pregnant (perhaps 3 weeks away from delivery) and on one of my frequent trips to the rest room my 2 year old peaks under the door and tells me she ate a battery. I rush out and realize she had removed a battery cover on a toy and removed those little batteries out of it and one was missing. I call my husband at work, he calls the local clinic why I turn to some of my mommy friends. They want her in, hubby comes home to take her so I can stay home with our other 2. They decide they want us to bring her to Mass. General Hospital. I take her there because she wants mommy now. They look over the Xrays, mention needing to get it out and we sit and wait. Finally they come back and tell me poison control has a battery line and their procedures were never updated in the hospital files, that nothing needed to be done because it was already in her stomach and to bring her back in if it didn’t pass in 48 hours. Luckily it passed the next morning. Now she has a DVD x-ray of the battery in her stomach for her scrapbook.
Oh my goodness!!! At least she told you – otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have even known (maybe). That is a great idea to keep the x-ray of it for the scrapbook.
Oh yes. I’ve had to call TWICE now for my son. Once he managed to reach Purel that I THOUGHT was out of reach, but he managed to summon his gadget arms on a day when I was feeling particularly sluggish with a cold and he sucked some of it out of the spout. Then, this summer, while we were out of town (there’s that out-of-town thing again!), I was packing up and he grabbed my bottle of TUMS (thanks a lot, pregnancy heartburn) and went to town in the minutes I took to turn around and grab some of our other medications and toiletries. Ah! >.<
Sneaky little guy! Until this weekend, I never realized how much trouble something like that could cause. When it happened to my friend, I was stunned because she’s such a good mommy. Then it happened to me as I was trying to protect her from getting into them. Little curious buggers!!!
I had to call when my daughter was about 9 months old. She got ahold of a small bottle of hand lotion, and I was letting her play with it (since you have to unscrew the top and I didn’t think she would be able to do that), but unscrew the top she did and in the time it took me to run over to her (I was in the same room), she put it in her mouth and started to drink it!! Thankfully it isn’t a big deal (can just cause a stomach ache), but it sure scared me. Made me realize just how much they can figure out that I didn’t think they could. And, it scared her pretty bad for me to freak out and wash her mouth out under the sink.
I scared Maggie too when I told her to spit it out right now. I wouldn’t have thought a nine month old could unscrew the cap either!
This type of things scares the crap out of me. My son grabs everything and puts it in his mouth right away. He did it with a metformin tab (diabetes med) and luckily I pulled it out before he swallowed.
So glad you got that back out before he could eat it!
I’ve called poison control twice on the same kid and never on my other three. I totally hear you mama!
I have been so worried for when Charlie gets old enough to crawl and walk. He is really oral, constantly chewing on his hands or anything else he can reach. I didn’t expect it to be Maggie I had to call for.
I’ve called twice – once over kids’ shampoo (ewww, why would you want to eat that anyway – maybe because it smells fruity?) and another time when my toddler ate the ‘candy’ from a dish at a garage sale which in reality were bath beads :/
Eeek. I have heard soap like things just make them poop more. What did they say when you called?
I called for my oldest. She was my rascally one. We had all the safety gadgets that were available. Every cabinet had a lock on it but she somehow managed to get under the bathroom sink when she was somewhere between 12 and 18 months old. She pulled out a can of air freshener and I think she sprayed it in her mouth. Poison Control told me 1 or 2 small sprays wouldn’t be a problem but it still scared me. I had to call her Dr a few times for falls too. Then one time, while I was working nights, I was sitting on the couch and apparently had dozed for a second in the middle of the day while waiting for Daddy to come home so I could finally sleep and little girl got into a bottle of blue nail polish. She dribbled it on my couch and painted a bit on her lips! I called my mom because for some reason the number I had for poison control wasn’t working. She found the right number, called it and they connected her to 911. They sent paramedics to my house! My mom showed up, which was a good thing because they couldn’t find my apartment. But my mom was also a bit frantic and she was making me cry so one of the men in charge of the paramedics made her leave.lol. My daughter was just fine. Thankfully she didn’t eat any of the nail polish.
My oldest is the one that made trips to urgent care, E.R. and Drs for accidents, breaks and even dislocations and stitches. I’m so glad none of my other children are that crazy. You live and learn.
You definitely live and learn! If only the kids caught on as quickly!!!
That’s so scary! Thank you for the reminder!
You are welcome!
This is so scary, but ou had to pack them for your trip. Just a curious child, and it’s a fact that they do things so quickly that you don’t know before it is too late. My husband is on several pills a day and we try hard to have him take them when my son isn’t around because he wants to be just like daddy in every aspect. However, we also keep those same pills way up high in the closet because my monkey would get them anywhere else in a split second!
I usually take them at night after she is in bed, so she doesn’t see me take them, but that wasn’t why I took them at night; although that is a great reason to take them at night!