How do I keep smokey mitts off my baby?

New mom wants partygoers to wash their hands AND don a hospital smock before handling her baby--if they're smokers.

Text: (from Link)

I have a newly born baby and need to stop smokers asking to hold the baby(without taking pre-cautions) without causing offense. How can I do this without being rude or hurting my very loving friends who don't know anything about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?

I've been invited to a party where I'll be introducing our third and last baby to many of our friends who haven't met the baby yet. Our first child was a S.I.D.S. baby who fortunately had his first episode in hospital so came home on a S.I.D.S. monitor and heart stimulant medication- which has made us very anxious about our subsequent children.

Our friends may or may not remember about this so it's probably going to be a new conversation for at least a few of them. No-one will be smoking near the baby but at least two of the women are very motherly and very heavy smokers. One of them, "Belinda", had resumed smoking when our middle child was an infant (I didn't know) and held our middle child even though she had received the email from my husband telling everyone about the birth and that smokers should change their clothes before holding the baby. Belinda's a very dear friend and has terminal cancer, I love her like a sister so it wasn't my place to chastise her, but I was furious and distressed back then and didn't say anything because she didn't tell me until some time later even though I smelled it on her clothes. I thought it was just because her car had residual smell from when she was previously a smoker.

So I know the risk is small, but considering our oldest child, this is not something I'm prepared to negotiate on. I want to ask the smokers to wash their hands and don some kind of over-cloth before holding our baby. I have no vocabulary for doing this gently, lovingly and without sounding like a neurotic b!tch.

Another complicating factor is that "Belinda" has two small grandchildren and her own daughter did not restrict her holding her babies or ask her to use a cloth. She may have asked "Belinda" to wash her hands, I'm not sure.

I did requisition a hospital gown which I could take to the party but I figure this would draw enormous amounts of attention to them and alienate them or me or both and cause offense. I don't want to upset anyone but I don't want to expose my baby to the toxins in their clothes and on their hands. Nor do I want to suggest that they would willfully endanger any baby which I worry I am tacitly doing by drawing attention to this.

My husband will not be there so it's not like I can say to him "Hold the baby and don't let go". I'll have our two year old also, so it's going to be impossible to not hand the baby over. And not going is also not an option as I have to face them some time, they're our dear friends and it's a friends birthday. And I do want them to hold our baby.

So help me Hive Mind. I'm not an American and not in America if this makes a difference. I'm also not very good at being up-front in this kind of situation. I usually am about other things, just not this kind of thing.

Geez, just leave the kid at home and claim he/she isn't feeling well if it's that much of an issue. Or buy a plastic bubble.

I suppose she doesn't allow her husband to ever drive the family minivan through an industrial area, either. A pollutant might get on their car and someone might accidentally brush against it, contaminating their clothes.

I wonder if she washes the baby in Brita water? And I'm sure she/he wears organic, non-bleached cloth diapers. Because the bleach that makes them white is toxic, too. And I hope she doesn't put a white tissue up to the baby's face when it has a runny nose.

You see where I'm going...

Is she even sure that this "party" will even be held in a smokefree environment? It's entirely possible that they will have an outdoor area for smokers and non-smokers are known to sometimes join the outside group for a time and will likely get some third hand smoke on their clothing. Is she certain that the home dwellers don't smoke in their own home when no one else is present? I know people who only smoke inside their home when they have no visitors because there are so many who are allergic, fanatics about it, think that smoke from another room or floor will damage them in some way, or they complain about the smell, the smoke, or the habit itself to the point that peace of mind outweighs temporary inconvenience. If this is the case, a nicotine/tobacco/smoke test in the "party home" for latent third hand smoke would likely light up the charts, so to speak. Basically, when she takes that baby out in public, she has NO WAY OF KNOWING, short of scientifically testing each and every surface, what potential carcinogens may lurk on others' clothing, cushins on public seating (waiting areas, busses, dentists' chairs, airlines, restaurant chairs, etc....) in the air, food, or on her OWN person after having been exposed to the public.:smoke


If it's this big of an issue for her, I think it's best that she not bring the child out in public, but rather that she allows these "dear friends" to be made aware of the child's potential hypersensitivity to third hand smoke and to come to HER house, strip down at her front door, shower and scrub down (like at level 4 labs at the CDC) and maybe put on sterile scrubs, IF they want to hold baybee. It is beyond reasonable care in the normal course of a social interaction to single people out (possibly many strangers, even) without warning and force them to wear hospital scrubs in order to hold the baybee. The assumption that someone wants to "hold the baybee" is a bit presumptious anyway. Etiquette wise, it is a SHITTY way to hijack a birthday party being held for another person as well. It's also important to note that a child who had a breathing cessation episode but who survived is NOT reffered to as a "SIDS baybee". That term is generally reserved for baybees who have died from SIDS. which was my FIRST clue that this attention whore was a nutcase. She should politely decline to attend this party, it's just that simple. When another guest knows in advance that his needs/wants/demands will upstage the guest of honor's, then he shouldn't attend the party or ceremony. To do so would just be bad manners, regardless of the excuse given. IMHO.:gun1

I reacted to this story because I'm a bit of a neurotic fanatic about only using natural cleaners in my house. Vinegar and baking soda is about as far as I'll go for cleaners. There's a cup of baking soda by the sink that I use for scrubbing dishes, and I vinegarize the counters every day, and the floors about twice a month. I think it smells nice and I feel good knowing it's not only non-toxic...it's tasty. Charlie's Soap for the laundry, yay!

I had to buy a toilet bowl cleaner two months ago for a scaly toilet that I just couldn't get clean and I blanched to read the dire warnings on the back. Jeebus, you breathe, touch, or much less ingest that stuff & you're in deep shit. I was so paranoid about splashing it around I sequestered it in a special exile spot in the cupboard. NASTY! It did a good job on the mineralized toilet, I must say. But JEEZ! Ick!

My POINT is that with nervous mommies like this specimen, likely they buy all sorts of toxic crap with which to clean their homes. In fact, many medical professionals believe that the abrupt rise in allergies (peanut, &c.) in the last 15 years is due to what is called the Hygiene Hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that modern homes are kept way too antiseptic, so that young immune systems aren't built up by normal exposure to everyday germs. So, I'd venture a guess that this precious little baby, when it goes home from the party where guests were expected to wear a hospital smock before handling it, will be exposed to a Glade Pine Fresh auto-spray air freshener in the bathroom, Glade Plug-Ins in an electrical socket near its crib, carpet "fresheners," shower "scrubbing bubbles", window cleaners, disinfectants, you name it--in short, a toxic brew, especially in a home sealed shut for AC.

I guess I'm overall riled at a mom whose neurosis creates abysmal rudeness towards other people who just want to admire the kid.

Here we go with the fucking bubble wrap again! Leave the loaf and toadlers home when YOU go out. That solves the constant mooing and lowing about "da chyllunnnn". Just because YOU have kyds, that doesn't mean the lives of everyone on the planet revolve around them.

I am still trying to figure out why she is choosing a friend's (adult) birthday party to debut cuntlet # 3 AND to drag cuntlet #2 along as well? Why can't these "dear friends" invite her and her fuck trophies over individually after they have de-contaminated their homes and bodies and are donning bio-hazard suits? Why can't cuntlets 2 and 3 stay wherever cuntlet "SIDS BAYBEE" survivor is staying during the party? I think that she is assuming quite a bit in bringing her small kyds to an adult birthday party anyway and I can't help but wonder if anyone even invited those kyds or expects them to be in attendance. Also, if they are such "dear friends", why doesn't she just tell them individually? She is acting like that they will all be sitting around and twiddling their thumbs in silence UNTIL her red carpet arrival, HOW SELFISH. This attention whore needs to just stay at home with her kyds and play martyr moo instead if ruining every adult get together that comes across her path.

I may be a little ignorant on this issue, but I have never heard of a baby surviving SIDS. That's why it's called Sudden Infant DEATH Syndrome. When there's no death, it's not SIDS...it's something else. Excess tobacco smoke is allegedly a risk factor in causing SIDS...excess. Not the stink of some smoke on someone's clothes or a trace of tobacco on someone's face.

CAPTCHA: neekl (sounds like "nickel" - do I get lots of points?)

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Cambion
I may be a little ignorant on this issue, but I have never heard of a baby surviving SIDS. That's why it's called Sudden Infant DEATH Syndrome. When there's no death, it's not SIDS...it's something else. Excess tobacco smoke is allegedly a risk factor in causing SIDS...excess. Not the stink of some smoke on someone's clothes or a trace of tobacco on someone's face.

CAPTCHA: neekl (sounds like "nickel" - do I get lots of points?)

I don't think that we are ignorant of SIDS at all, but rather she is CALLING it SIDS, in order to garner attention. It's like when they say that the kyd almost has pneumonia, when it's really just a mild and partial lung infection caused by a bad cold, he almost was at the daycare the day the killer came in, he was almost on the plane that crashed, etc......It somehow gives more credence to their story and therefore it garners more sympathy and attention. I feel a WHOLE lot more sorry for a SIDS babybee and his parents than I do where one had the alleged symptoms caught early and medical intervention saved his life. Maybe I am interpretting it wrong, but this is what she says that makes me think that the "SIDS baybee" survived:



"..... Our first child was a S.I.D.S. baby who fortunately had his first episode in hospital so came home on a S.I.D.S. monitor and heart stimulant medication- which has made us very anxious about our subsequent children.
Our friends may or may not remember about this so it's probably going to be a new conversation for at least a few of them.......".



Had he died, the friends would no doubt NOT need to be reminded is a strong clue that the "SIDS baybee" in fact did survive. If not, she has a strange way of communicating about it.

Clematis, I buy all-natural as well. Most of the time I use plain old hot soap and water or the Method line of cleaners. The only non-natural things I get are Tide, Woolite and Purex laundry detergents, Clorox toilet wands, Cascade dishwasher tablets and those Lysol wipes. Those labels on toilet liquid cleaners, Drain-O, Windex, Formula 409 and others freak me out too.

Anyway, I picture this woman's home to look like the set of that Silkwood movie, complete with chemical suits, showers with wire scrub brushes and sensors that go off when something is toxic (in this case, not radioactive, but who knows, maybe she worries about that too). Can't you hear it? You walk through the door and sirens go off with a "WOOP! WOOP!" sound.

And like you guys said, it's presumptuous to just bring the kids along and make it all about them. If asked to hold the baby and don a gown, I'd excuse myself to go to the bathroom.

a little bit of dirt, keeps the immune system exercised. i have seen so many houses scrubbed clean, every day, as soon as one bit of washed lettuce falls on the floor, the kitchen has to be bleached..

we have a bleach here it kills 99.9% of all germs. (leaving the 0.1% immune, and now thats got a free areas to breed and become nastier.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Isn't it incredible how breeders can be such polar opposites? They either live in complete filth or they sanitize and sterilize and wash and bleach everyfuckingthing in the house. It's weird.

then complain how their kids are.. ill. have these allergies, and dont link cleanliness to allergies

as more and more houses are super clean, allergies have gone up. think about your mum and dads and grans era. their houses were clean, but not super clean. how many of them had allergies

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

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kidlesskim
come to HER house, strip down at her front door, shower and scrub down (like at level 4 labs at the CDC) and maybe put on sterile scrubs, IF they want to hold baybee.

I don't doubt that this whack job would do exactly this. This woman is clearly nuts. Maybe she needs to keep the kyd ensconsed in a plastic bubble for the rest of its life.

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- The human gene pool could use a little chlorine

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clematis
Charlie's Soap for the laundry, yay!

Thanks for the link. I've been using either Seventh Generation or Ecco but this Charlie's looks good. I use mostly natural cleaners and I also use a floor steamer to clean my floors. Mostly I do this so my cats don't lick any toxic type cleaner off their paws because they're notorious for running around on newly washed floors.

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- The human gene pool could use a little chlorine

another moo attention getting device..

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

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m4p

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clematis
Charlie's Soap for the laundry, yay!

Thanks for the link. I've been using either Seventh Generation or Ecco but this Charlie's looks good. I use mostly natural cleaners and I also use a floor steamer to clean my floors. Mostly I do this so my cats don't lick any toxic type cleaner off their paws because they're notorious for running around on newly washed floors.

[ot]
I used to use 7th Gen too, but Charlie's is really eye--opening. The first time I used it my washing water turned BLACK because it takes off ALL the built-up crud in the washer. Clothes come out fragrance-free, super-clean, and soft. I did a wash this a.m. and the water was a filthy dark grey--it really powers out dirt; it's the best! Expensive BUT you only use 1 tablespoon at a time, amazingly enough; it evens out to be about the same cost as conventional detergents. Lasts a long time and comes in cute little muslin bags. Totally-non-toxic, no phosphates. Tons of worshipful testimonials on that website. Absolutely great stuff!
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I recently bought 2 2-pound bags (about the size of 2 very large onions one on top of the other) of the laundry powder for $13 each (sale; they're currently $15). Each bag does 80 loads, so that's 160 loads. I do about 1 load of laundry every 3 days, so those 2 bags should be good for 480 days (!) except I usually put in a little more than the recommended amount for big loads (and because I like to see the awesome black water). It'll last probably till next fall though. Pretty darn cheap when you pro-rate it out, very small storage space, and you can cross off laundry detergent from your list (and don't have to haul around big bottles of Tide &c. any longer). Plus it gets delivered right to your door; one less thing to mess with at the store!

I plan to make a little purse from the first bag that gets emptied; it's got cool ole-timey typography on it and would make a super-cute, unique, unusual purse.

Price list for various Charlie's Soap products (I have no affiliation with this company, just a fan!)

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kidlesskim
I am still trying to figure out why she is choosing a friend's (adult) birthday party to debut cuntlet # 3 AND to drag cuntlet #2 along as well? Why can't these "dear friends" invite her and her fuck trophies over individually after they have de-contaminated their homes and bodies and are donning bio-hazard suits? Why can't cuntlets 2 and 3 stay wherever cuntlet "SIDS BAYBEE" survivor is staying during the party? I think that she is assuming quite a bit in bringing her small kyds to an adult birthday party anyway and I can't help but wonder if anyone even invited those kyds or expects them to be in attendance. Also, if they are such "dear friends", why doesn't she just tell them individually?

Oh KLK, you are so funny...asking questions you know the answers to already!

She's choosing to debut the children at an adult birthday party because, she does not care about adults. It's all about her and the babies now, and the world shall revolve accordingly.
The "dear friends" didn't invite the chyldren, and probably have no idea they're coming. She's just bringing them because who wouldn't want a couple of babies at an adult birthday party? I mean, they're BAAYYBEEES, and if you don't want them around a bunch of adults drinking and having fun, then you're an evil monster...and no one wants to be an evil monster, right?
They can't stay with the SIDS survivor (now THAT'S a tenacious baby with a love of life), because they might kill it by breathing on it.
She can't tell them individually because then she won't be able to make a big scene of protecting the children at someone else's birthday party.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

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clematis
I used to use 7th Gen too, but Charlie's is really eye--opening. The first time I used it my washing water turned BLACK because it takes off ALL the built-up crud in the washer. Clothes come out fragrance-free, super-clean, and soft. I did a wash this a.m. and the water was a filthy dark grey--it really powers out dirt; it's the best!

Thanks, Clematis I definitely want to try some, it sounds great. Seems like the cost is not too bad considering how many loads you can get.

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- The human gene pool could use a little chlorine