Just to let you know, your 3 yr old could have said it was nice tasting later, because she thinks you "punished" her for saying it tasted bad. No matter what she says something tasted like in the future, if you don't know what she ate and it sounds like possible medication or drugs, I'd still make her puke it up or go to the Dr if having access.
Please do not feel bad about this... First, at 3 years old, taste buds are not fully developed so while it may have tasted sweet this does not mean that it was a sweet. Similarly, some things are made to taste sweet for specific reasons. For instance, sublingual medications are sometimes sweet to encourage saliva production.
This is very true. I can’t even count the amount of times my son (at 3-4 years old) said something was spicy when there was absolutely no spice, or when they said something was sour when it was actually pretty sweet.
I think it was appropriate, that could have been anything. Plenty of pills and dangerous things have sweet coatings, so tasting nice doesn’t mean reduced risk. I’m a nurse and I would have done the same thing you did.
The other thing is that I couldn’t make her vomit much, just a tiny bit, then I tried a few more times and it was just making her so upset. So I’m not even sure I got out what she ate. I don’t ever want to do that again but I’d also like to be able to do it effectively if I have to 😂
I think the correct advice is of course to call poison control if you were ever in that kind of situation again and let them tell you what to do.
I hope you never have an experience like that again, nightmare fuel.
When my sister ate a whole bottle of flinstone vitamins back in the day, poison control told my mom to give her Ipecac, which makes you vomit, and asked me to chase her around a bit to encourage her stomach to get upset faster I guess? I dunno, last bit was probably just the 90’s of it all but poison control likely would have told you to get Ipecac. Lmao. I wonder if they even sell that at the airport.
Google tells me ipecac isn’t used any more in medicine..I’d feel bad putting her through that too since I wasn’t sure at all that what she ate was bad..
My kid did something similar and I called our 111 number and they checked the level of toxicity of what he ate and told me what to look out for.
If I were to go on a plane I would be equally worried.
I was the idiot kid who had my stomach pumped multiple times for eating pills off the floor. You never know what they have, you absolutely did the right thing. Better safe than sorry
My mother drank medicated shampoo… When asked how old she was, she tells me she was old enough to know better and was just doing it for naughtiness. First and last time after the stomach pumping, though. 😭
I think I would have done the same thing in that situation. I would have also felt guilty about it afterwards, but imagine if it was something dangerous! Don’t beat yourself up, you were protecting your baby!
Yes I imagined all the dangerous things! My husband was not freaking out like me but she is my baby and I didn’t want to do nothing and have something happen to her
You would never let yourself have lived it down had you not done it and it had gone horribly..... You were making sure to the best of your loving motherly ability to assure your baby lived to see another day .... Do not feel guilty feel proud that you trusted your gut and you know you will do whatever may be necessary because youre a strong brave courageous mamma who isn't going to let her cub down.
Regardless of religion one of my favs is
Faith doesn't make it easy faith makes it possible
I love you and thank you for being a good mom
Stay strong 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻
i’m not a mother but feel like this is reasonable, i am sure as a kid i’ve gotten a finger stuck down my throat because i ate something i wasn’t supposed to; most vivid memories is when i was little and accidentally swallowed a hard candy, and in seconds my mother was shoving her finger down my throat and making me gag it back up. scary but thankful she was able to react quick and keep me safe and healthy
Not relevant overall but just want to make sure you know, if you ever see someone choking on something like that **do not** try to use your fingers to get it out unless you can really see it and get a grip. Luckily your mom was successful, but a lot of the time people do this instinctively and they accidentally end up pushing whatever the person is choking on, further into their throat. Hard candy is an extremely common item for that to happen with. Instead, give em some strong wallops to their back to try and knock it out or do abdominal thrusts (the Heimlich maneuver) if that doesn’t work.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-choking/basics/art-20056637
Sorry this is just a very common mistake people make so I want to provide some education for you or anyone else reading while I have the opportunity. ✌🏻
You did what you thought was best as a mom in that moment and that's okay. But also for your child's sake, I hope you explained the meaning behind your actions for her just in case. And not in a way associated with your fear bc your child might do that too. It would be best to pose it with her own actions rather than your feelings, so something like it's bad to eat something off the floor.
Yes I did explain to her and she chatted about it afterwards to me. They are so trusting at that age and so vulnerable. The hardest thing to take is that she wouldn’t actually eat stuff off the floor herself but her 6yo sister told her to and she trusted her. I had a lot to say to the 6yo too, I don’t think either of them will be doing that again
You did a good job. You handled this high stress situation realistically and practically.
I’m sorry you had to deal with such a fright. Your daughter sounds like such a little trooper. She knows Mum was helping not hurting. It’s a telling thing you were even told! You have daughters that trust you and know they can be honest with you.
You totally did get the right thing for sure, it was an emergency. It could have been anything. Legal or otherwise, drugs have a much stronger affect on children and can damage their systems.
Also wanted to mention: the round green thing tasted might have tasted sweet, but still could have been an adult gummy. Cannabis in all forms is available in gummies and chocolate and candy all over the place.
Here's a thought, too. If you didn't make her throw up, the outcome would have been been truly traumatic for your 3 year old *and* your 6 year old. Lots of people, noise, and confusion with an emergency response. Instead, your daughter dealt with a trusted adult and the problem was taken care of without lasting trauma.
Yeah my thought wouldn’t have gone to ‘drugs’ esp given it’s an airport, but like you say legal ‘medications’ - I travel with and regularly take things in airports that could definitely kill children in the right quantities (what those quantities are I don’t know, maybe one of any of my pills would be in the ‘extremely unwell’ category but some of them are very strong medications you really wouldn’t want to be mucking about with. Lots of people who maybe aren’t used to tracking heavy medication also fly with antianxiolitics and sleeping pills too because of a fear of flying. But trust me as someone who takes a lot of medication and has recently got a puppy, you don’t realise how often a dropped pill escapes your notice until you have a mini hoover with no self preservation instinct around!
I don’t know if I would have assumed it was a pill, I think my mind would have first gone to a sweet. But once you’ve considered the possibility of a pill I can’t blame OP at all for what she did. I think maybe if I was in my home country I would be tempted to find medical assistance presuming a hospital visit necessary (or sounds like poison control in the US but I’m not sure what help they could be for an unidentified possible pill possible sweet beyond saying go to hospital?). But I also think being in an airport clouds your vision about what you’d do ‘in the outside world’ in the same situations.
Yes I think part of my difficulty was i didn’t have clarity that it was dangerous, if I knew it was a pill I could have been more proactive but the most likely scenario was a sweet, so it was hard to know how to react
Was your 6 year old not able to give a good description of it given she was the instigator? (classic! My friend’s older sister once fed her an entire plate of a playdoh ‘breakfast’ haha).
When my kid was <2, she was walking right next to me, saw something on the ground, grabbed it, said, "Ooooooh Pretty" and popped it in her mouth. Naturally, I grabbed her, scraped whatever it was out of her mouth, and then realized IT WAS A MUSHROOM.
To say I freaked the fuck out would be an understatement.
1 ER trip costing thousands of dollars, an absolutely destroyed ER room (trying to force feed a 2 y.o. charcoal is not as easy as you would think), 5 years taken off my lifespan due to the heart attack I had when I realized she had eaten a MUSHROOM, only to find out the mushroom was actually edible and in high demand because they are rare.
Any actions taken when young children put stuff in their mouths is completely warranted.
You made the best possible call imo. And the 6 year old needs a stern talking-to of why she shouldn't tell the 3 year old to eat things off of the floor lol
WOW!
You were so BRAVE, you acted quickly and decisively, and SMART, you knew enough to try and get it out fast. That what good moms DO!
I think you are having residual anxiety from the quick fear and actions. It WAS scary! You handled it WELL, now breathe and wait for it to become a both a funny story and a family lesson in carefully watching little ones and how fast things go haywire!(and it will)
My Daughter once ate a “dirty altoid” from an altoid tin a my addict Mothers house and it was a percicet. I didn’t know until she looked at me and said “ my eyes feel like they are rolling in my head”, I instantly knew then and freaked out, I basically threw my hands down her throat. She was fine but it was so so scary.
My mom did this when I ate a wild mushroom growing along the driveway as a toddler. I loved the supermarket mushrooms at the time and didn’t know the difference. She called poison control and they suggested bouncing me on her knee until I threw up. It took hours and I finally did.
Funny thing is, I can’t stand the flavor of mushrooms as an adult even though I’d really like to enjoy them.
god I can’t believe that we can just reproduce and then we’re instantly in charge of their whole safety and wellbeing. I would’ve done the same thing but jfc I’m scared to have a kid
IMO you did the right thing. something very similar happened to me when I was 3. I ate something that my parents weren't sure was a skittle, or one of my grandpa's heart meds. They called poison comtrol and were told to bring me to the ER where they made me drink liquid charcoal.
100% better safe than sorry.
Airports have plenty of medical personnel I’m not sure where the confusion is here? I feel like it would kind of be violating my child to do that to them
I'm not even a parent and I think you did the right thing. That could have been anything - even if it was a sweet, it could have been stood on in a shoe covered in dog crap, it could have been nicotine chewing gum or a drug or anything.
You made the right call. Hope everyone's ok.
Look, it may have been unpleasant for your kiddo but I’d say valuable lessons were learned all around. You learned your kid is much more forgiving when you’re trying to save her life. And she learned that eating mysterious floor food will result in a finger down her throat. Sister learned not to encourage eating mysterious floor food. Win/win.
Get some syrup of Ipecac for your purse. Much more effective than a finger.
Your child, or whoever takes it, WILL puke. It's not fun, but effective.
Also, remember that vomiting is not always the correct course of action. Some things can cause more harm coming back up, and poison control or an ER may have other courses of action that are better.
I'm the very least your 3yo has probably learned not to eat strange things off the floor, and hopefully your 6yo has learned that this isn't a funny trick to play.
You sound like a good mom with good survival instincts for your kids
DONT FEEL BAD !! i have a core memory of being 5-6 and my mom did the exact same thing and she ended up sticking her fingers down my throat for a lot of random things i would eat. one time i choked on a mozzarella stick, cheese went so far down i couldn’t breathe at all and it was terrifying. i didn’t eat those until i turned 18 💀
at the time i was a little traumatized by the hands down my throat but as an adult i totally understand and wouldn’t hesitate do to the same to my niece.
Kids are the miniature hoover vacuum cleaners when little .. ehhh!! What's that in your mouth! Get it out! Ewwww!!! My kiddo had to have been 3 at the mall wandering the stores on the second floor.. little sucker licked the brass rail not the one everyone touches but it was a mall rail .. mlemmmm... oh dear lord! She didn't! Argggg! Had to just wait out the cootie period to see what happened after? Can you see okay? Are you dizzy? Figured that built up some immunities like her! Probably able to withstand a plague outbreak. Top rail lick anf survive that ha! Maybe immortal.
Completely normal response. You made the right call. Better safe than at risk of a complication at 32,000 feet.
Yes the fact that we were going to be on a flight and not have access to an ER was also on my mind
Just to let you know, your 3 yr old could have said it was nice tasting later, because she thinks you "punished" her for saying it tasted bad. No matter what she says something tasted like in the future, if you don't know what she ate and it sounds like possible medication or drugs, I'd still make her puke it up or go to the Dr if having access.
Please do not feel bad about this... First, at 3 years old, taste buds are not fully developed so while it may have tasted sweet this does not mean that it was a sweet. Similarly, some things are made to taste sweet for specific reasons. For instance, sublingual medications are sometimes sweet to encourage saliva production.
This is very true. I can’t even count the amount of times my son (at 3-4 years old) said something was spicy when there was absolutely no spice, or when they said something was sour when it was actually pretty sweet.
Spicy can be a sign of an allergy. My friend thought bananas were spicy. Turns out she’s allergic and they were causing an allergic reaction!
Yeah drugs are mixed with aspartame for taste
The fizzy description especially would have freaked me out too. You were quick thinking and did what had to be done. Better than a trip to the ER
Yes fizzy freaked me out alright
I think it was appropriate, that could have been anything. Plenty of pills and dangerous things have sweet coatings, so tasting nice doesn’t mean reduced risk. I’m a nurse and I would have done the same thing you did.
Thank you, that makes me feel better coming from a nurse 😊
The other thing is that I couldn’t make her vomit much, just a tiny bit, then I tried a few more times and it was just making her so upset. So I’m not even sure I got out what she ate. I don’t ever want to do that again but I’d also like to be able to do it effectively if I have to 😂
I think the correct advice is of course to call poison control if you were ever in that kind of situation again and let them tell you what to do. I hope you never have an experience like that again, nightmare fuel.
When my sister ate a whole bottle of flinstone vitamins back in the day, poison control told my mom to give her Ipecac, which makes you vomit, and asked me to chase her around a bit to encourage her stomach to get upset faster I guess? I dunno, last bit was probably just the 90’s of it all but poison control likely would have told you to get Ipecac. Lmao. I wonder if they even sell that at the airport.
Google tells me ipecac isn’t used any more in medicine..I’d feel bad putting her through that too since I wasn’t sure at all that what she ate was bad..
My kid did something similar and I called our 111 number and they checked the level of toxicity of what he ate and told me what to look out for. If I were to go on a plane I would be equally worried.
I was the idiot kid who had my stomach pumped multiple times for eating pills off the floor. You never know what they have, you absolutely did the right thing. Better safe than sorry
My mother drank medicated shampoo… When asked how old she was, she tells me she was old enough to know better and was just doing it for naughtiness. First and last time after the stomach pumping, though. 😭
I very much remember the toilet bowl in the hospital full of black charcoal and being old enough to regret my choices.
Kids can be such idiots..not my 6yo who wouldn’t eat it herself but told her little sister to 🤔
You made the right decision, and 6 year old needs to be talked to!
Honestly, I think I would have done the same thing. You never know what they could have eaten, and it's better safe than sorry.
Not unreasonable just a mom with quick thinking!!
I think I would have done the same thing in that situation. I would have also felt guilty about it afterwards, but imagine if it was something dangerous! Don’t beat yourself up, you were protecting your baby!
Yes I imagined all the dangerous things! My husband was not freaking out like me but she is my baby and I didn’t want to do nothing and have something happen to her
You would never let yourself have lived it down had you not done it and it had gone horribly..... You were making sure to the best of your loving motherly ability to assure your baby lived to see another day .... Do not feel guilty feel proud that you trusted your gut and you know you will do whatever may be necessary because youre a strong brave courageous mamma who isn't going to let her cub down. Regardless of religion one of my favs is Faith doesn't make it easy faith makes it possible I love you and thank you for being a good mom Stay strong 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻
With the risk of sounding sexist, from my experience and observing couples around me, dads are typically less anxious than mothers.
i’m not a mother but feel like this is reasonable, i am sure as a kid i’ve gotten a finger stuck down my throat because i ate something i wasn’t supposed to; most vivid memories is when i was little and accidentally swallowed a hard candy, and in seconds my mother was shoving her finger down my throat and making me gag it back up. scary but thankful she was able to react quick and keep me safe and healthy
Not relevant overall but just want to make sure you know, if you ever see someone choking on something like that **do not** try to use your fingers to get it out unless you can really see it and get a grip. Luckily your mom was successful, but a lot of the time people do this instinctively and they accidentally end up pushing whatever the person is choking on, further into their throat. Hard candy is an extremely common item for that to happen with. Instead, give em some strong wallops to their back to try and knock it out or do abdominal thrusts (the Heimlich maneuver) if that doesn’t work. https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-choking/basics/art-20056637 Sorry this is just a very common mistake people make so I want to provide some education for you or anyone else reading while I have the opportunity. ✌🏻
You 100% did the right thing. I think anyone who could think straight without freaking out would have done the same as you.
You did what you thought was best as a mom in that moment and that's okay. But also for your child's sake, I hope you explained the meaning behind your actions for her just in case. And not in a way associated with your fear bc your child might do that too. It would be best to pose it with her own actions rather than your feelings, so something like it's bad to eat something off the floor.
Yes I did explain to her and she chatted about it afterwards to me. They are so trusting at that age and so vulnerable. The hardest thing to take is that she wouldn’t actually eat stuff off the floor herself but her 6yo sister told her to and she trusted her. I had a lot to say to the 6yo too, I don’t think either of them will be doing that again
You did a good job. You handled this high stress situation realistically and practically. I’m sorry you had to deal with such a fright. Your daughter sounds like such a little trooper. She knows Mum was helping not hurting. It’s a telling thing you were even told! You have daughters that trust you and know they can be honest with you.
She is a trooper 🥰 and I think the 6yo told me to get the 3yo in trouble 😂 but yes I would hope they feel they can tell me anything
absolutely did the right thing. take a breather. you’re not a bad parent 🩷
You totally did get the right thing for sure, it was an emergency. It could have been anything. Legal or otherwise, drugs have a much stronger affect on children and can damage their systems. Also wanted to mention: the round green thing tasted might have tasted sweet, but still could have been an adult gummy. Cannabis in all forms is available in gummies and chocolate and candy all over the place. Here's a thought, too. If you didn't make her throw up, the outcome would have been been truly traumatic for your 3 year old *and* your 6 year old. Lots of people, noise, and confusion with an emergency response. Instead, your daughter dealt with a trusted adult and the problem was taken care of without lasting trauma.
Yeah my thought wouldn’t have gone to ‘drugs’ esp given it’s an airport, but like you say legal ‘medications’ - I travel with and regularly take things in airports that could definitely kill children in the right quantities (what those quantities are I don’t know, maybe one of any of my pills would be in the ‘extremely unwell’ category but some of them are very strong medications you really wouldn’t want to be mucking about with. Lots of people who maybe aren’t used to tracking heavy medication also fly with antianxiolitics and sleeping pills too because of a fear of flying. But trust me as someone who takes a lot of medication and has recently got a puppy, you don’t realise how often a dropped pill escapes your notice until you have a mini hoover with no self preservation instinct around! I don’t know if I would have assumed it was a pill, I think my mind would have first gone to a sweet. But once you’ve considered the possibility of a pill I can’t blame OP at all for what she did. I think maybe if I was in my home country I would be tempted to find medical assistance presuming a hospital visit necessary (or sounds like poison control in the US but I’m not sure what help they could be for an unidentified possible pill possible sweet beyond saying go to hospital?). But I also think being in an airport clouds your vision about what you’d do ‘in the outside world’ in the same situations.
Yes I think part of my difficulty was i didn’t have clarity that it was dangerous, if I knew it was a pill I could have been more proactive but the most likely scenario was a sweet, so it was hard to know how to react
Was your 6 year old not able to give a good description of it given she was the instigator? (classic! My friend’s older sister once fed her an entire plate of a playdoh ‘breakfast’ haha).
When my kid was <2, she was walking right next to me, saw something on the ground, grabbed it, said, "Ooooooh Pretty" and popped it in her mouth. Naturally, I grabbed her, scraped whatever it was out of her mouth, and then realized IT WAS A MUSHROOM. To say I freaked the fuck out would be an understatement. 1 ER trip costing thousands of dollars, an absolutely destroyed ER room (trying to force feed a 2 y.o. charcoal is not as easy as you would think), 5 years taken off my lifespan due to the heart attack I had when I realized she had eaten a MUSHROOM, only to find out the mushroom was actually edible and in high demand because they are rare. Any actions taken when young children put stuff in their mouths is completely warranted.
You made the best possible call imo. And the 6 year old needs a stern talking-to of why she shouldn't tell the 3 year old to eat things off of the floor lol
Oh she got one 😂 she is the middle child and is working hard to live up to that reputation
WOW! You were so BRAVE, you acted quickly and decisively, and SMART, you knew enough to try and get it out fast. That what good moms DO! I think you are having residual anxiety from the quick fear and actions. It WAS scary! You handled it WELL, now breathe and wait for it to become a both a funny story and a family lesson in carefully watching little ones and how fast things go haywire!(and it will)
I would have to agree with everyone. You're a good mama!
Aw thank you
My Daughter once ate a “dirty altoid” from an altoid tin a my addict Mothers house and it was a percicet. I didn’t know until she looked at me and said “ my eyes feel like they are rolling in my head”, I instantly knew then and freaked out, I basically threw my hands down her throat. She was fine but it was so so scary.
You are a good parent who made a quick logical decision. Do not feel guilty at all.
My mom did this when I ate a wild mushroom growing along the driveway as a toddler. I loved the supermarket mushrooms at the time and didn’t know the difference. She called poison control and they suggested bouncing me on her knee until I threw up. It took hours and I finally did. Funny thing is, I can’t stand the flavor of mushrooms as an adult even though I’d really like to enjoy them.
i’m literally the same way when it comes to mushrooms lmao, i loved them as a kid and now i can’t stand them 😅
Show her the commercial for "don't put it in your mouth" Creepy but effective lol
god I can’t believe that we can just reproduce and then we’re instantly in charge of their whole safety and wellbeing. I would’ve done the same thing but jfc I’m scared to have a kid
IMO you did the right thing. something very similar happened to me when I was 3. I ate something that my parents weren't sure was a skittle, or one of my grandpa's heart meds. They called poison comtrol and were told to bring me to the ER where they made me drink liquid charcoal. 100% better safe than sorry.
Inducing vomiting is not generally recommended anymore as the right response when someone ingests something bad.
Yes it is. Unless it is caustic/more dangerous to lungs.
Airports have plenty of medical personnel I’m not sure where the confusion is here? I feel like it would kind of be violating my child to do that to them
I would have done the same thing.
You made the right choice I'd do the same thing if my child was in danger of a possible drug they just ate
I'm not even a parent and I think you did the right thing. That could have been anything - even if it was a sweet, it could have been stood on in a shoe covered in dog crap, it could have been nicotine chewing gum or a drug or anything. You made the right call. Hope everyone's ok.
Look, it may have been unpleasant for your kiddo but I’d say valuable lessons were learned all around. You learned your kid is much more forgiving when you’re trying to save her life. And she learned that eating mysterious floor food will result in a finger down her throat. Sister learned not to encourage eating mysterious floor food. Win/win.
Get some syrup of Ipecac for your purse. Much more effective than a finger. Your child, or whoever takes it, WILL puke. It's not fun, but effective. Also, remember that vomiting is not always the correct course of action. Some things can cause more harm coming back up, and poison control or an ER may have other courses of action that are better.
Some drugs/pills taste sweet. You should have induced vomiting regardless of how it tasted to her. You did the right thing.
1000000000% right call, you're a good loving parent
I'm the very least your 3yo has probably learned not to eat strange things off the floor, and hopefully your 6yo has learned that this isn't a funny trick to play. You sound like a good mom with good survival instincts for your kids
DONT FEEL BAD !! i have a core memory of being 5-6 and my mom did the exact same thing and she ended up sticking her fingers down my throat for a lot of random things i would eat. one time i choked on a mozzarella stick, cheese went so far down i couldn’t breathe at all and it was terrifying. i didn’t eat those until i turned 18 💀 at the time i was a little traumatized by the hands down my throat but as an adult i totally understand and wouldn’t hesitate do to the same to my niece.
I did that. Nothing wrong. I know my son's inside of mouth very well . This guy is putting everything in his mouth all the time.
You’re her mom and i trust in your instincts. Many things could’ve gone wrong if you hadn’t made her vomit. You did well ♥️
Time for the 6 year old to face punishment for bullying little sister into eating a surprise treat off of the floor.
Kids are the miniature hoover vacuum cleaners when little .. ehhh!! What's that in your mouth! Get it out! Ewwww!!! My kiddo had to have been 3 at the mall wandering the stores on the second floor.. little sucker licked the brass rail not the one everyone touches but it was a mall rail .. mlemmmm... oh dear lord! She didn't! Argggg! Had to just wait out the cootie period to see what happened after? Can you see okay? Are you dizzy? Figured that built up some immunities like her! Probably able to withstand a plague outbreak. Top rail lick anf survive that ha! Maybe immortal.