I was with my grandson outside the Museum of Natural History in the park area along Columbus on Thursday, 8/21 at approximately 11 am.A nanny was holding a baby (girl I think, between 2 - 6 months) screaming across her lap as she cleaned ears with Q-Tip. I did say to her that all doctors state not to use Q-Tips in infants ears but she emphatically told me to mind my own business.
The nanny was a slim black woman with short, straight hair. I think her accent was Jamaican. I am sure this Nanny did not think she could cause damage but the baby was in distress and the fact she brought Q-Tips to park leads me to believe this was not an isolated incident.
29 comments:
Oh, this is just so wrong. My baby's Dr. said the same thing. Never stick a Qtip in the ear, only wash the outside and barely inside part (never entering the canal) with a soft, warm cloth.
This baby could've ONLY been screaming because this nanny was going INSIDE the ear. UGH! I bet this baby still has an earache from it!
Tey make Q-tips for infants. Maybe the nanny was ok using those on her ears. I use them on my baby because its easier to get in the little creases of the ear and they don't fit in the canal due to the way they are designed. I'm sure she wasn't cleaning them just because she felt like it. Probably a request from the parents.
**They**
OP, Sorry you were told to MYOB. The nanny was most likely embarrassed.I truly believe some people are still ignorant to the fact that you do not put things inside a childs/infants ears to clean them out! I don't know how that is possible in this day and age ?
My husband's mother used the round end of a bobby-pin to clean her childrens ears out. (from the time they were 2 months old until about 12 years old)can you imagine?
My husband cringes when he talks about it!
I know that Johnsons & Johnsons even makes a special Q-tip for baby's ears called"Safety Swabs". They have an "ear safe bulb" to prevent you from going to deep into your baby's ear!
Poor baby. UESMOM You are probably 100 % right..the baby's ears will hurt for a while,no doubt! Sounds like nanny could use a child development & hygiene class!!
Three thoughts:
1) I bet the nanny was cleaning out her ears because they had water in them from the splashy place atop the AMNH.
2) My two children will shriek if held down for any reason - but obviously there's no way to clean their ears without holding them still.
3)Cleaning someone's ears with a q-tip is unneccessary and ill-advised, but hardly abusive - I think it would be ok for her to politely tell you to myob.
Maybe the baby had an ear infection and it was oozing our kids ears do that all the time, to the point we carry q-tips. Sometimes it just has to be done. And you know the kids hates it, but what do you do?
How long have Q-Tips been in existence? People have lived for many centuries without having to have their ears excavated.
Although I am not really one to complain. When I took my first baby home from the hospital they gave me one of those nose suctioning bulbs....with no instructions. I thought I needed to suck every booger out of his head before he went down for th enight or he might have trouble breathing. Needless to say, the baby screamed every time. I remember the night it ended. I was suctioning for an elusive booger I could see waaaayyyy up in his nose. Baby was screaming. My husband was standing there saying, "Do you have to do that? He obviously hates it. Maybe it hurts." I said, "But what if it blocks his breathing while he is asleep, and we don't know?" He said, "Those things are kind of new, and babies have survived for centuries sleeping with boogers in their noses." Ahhhh...that made perfect sense...DUH....and so I stopped...and he is 22 today... and perfectly alive and well.
I didn't use Q-Tip on them at all and they can all hear perfectly well too.
Or maybe you could pay more attention to your grandson you pathetic busybody.
That was really mean, 1nygirl.
ahh, I remember being a snot nosed 25 yr old, know it all at one time too..then I grew up! (and actually I was 18 but hey, I am trying to make a point here)
1NYgirl,its time to grow up if you want to play on the big girls blog..be nice..
otherwise, find a teen blog and beat it!
"be nice"? This entire blog is devoted to tattling on other people and bragging about accosting them and nagging them with your opinion about how children should be raised. It oozes classism and racism, and even if it was just rich white people b***hing about other rich white people, that still wouldn't make it "nice."
I don't think I would have worded it the same way as 1NYgirl did, but my sentiments are similar. This stuff is beyond ridiculous. I have seen 19 ludicrous posts on here for every 1 worthy, possibly dangerous one.
The kid's ears are fine. MYOB!
One of my sons screams and needs to be held down whenever he gets his ears cleaned. And that's gently, with safety swabs that do NOT go into the ear. He just plain don't like it, and will fight you tooth and nail to get away from me. But it has to be done for medical reasons.
So, personally, I would have told someone interfering to MYOB as well. When I'm sitting there cackling as I jamming a stick into his ear (in other words, obviously abusing him), then someone can butt in about it. Not every child expressing displeasure is on the verge of being murdered, people.
This grandma obviously meant well. Wouldn't you flip out if you saw an infant screaming? You'd take notice and want to hopefully PAY attention to what is going on.
I seriously doubt this nanny was just gently cleaning this child's ear. She was there, we weren't. She saw it. We didn't
laurie,
we will miss you when you come to your senses and move on to a blog that you actually enjoy, instead of spending your time here with people you find to be ridiculous 80% of the time.
well said, mom.
:) it amazes me how so many people find us ridiculous yet can't get enough of us!
Our grandsons doctor gave us the safety qtips to use. Our youngest had lots of wax so we had to clean the ears almost every day but we never stuck it in the canal for goodnes sakes. The little baby may have been crying because she was doing that or maybe crying for something else. I want to know how close OP was because she would have had to been right up in this womans face to see her going into the ear.
Maybe the baby was screaming because she was held down. All the same a baby 2-6mths of age does not require ear cleaning with a Q tip (refer to uesmom).
Having said this, why was the nanny cleaning her ear outside the museum in the first place? If for some reason her ear did require some kind of cleaning, she should have waited till she got home and did it where the baby could be comfortable and safe.
Some nannies just baffle me!!
really. when did ear cleaning become a public activity?
Maybe there was a bug inside the baby's ear? When I was a kid, I somehow got 3 ants in my ear, and my Mom had to use a q-tip to get them out of the canal. I see no other reason why a baby would need their ears cleaned outside of a museum. Granted, a q-tip is probably not the best option, but the baby may have been screaming because the ants were biting inside her ear, so the nanny felt the need to take care of it right then.
Really?
This post is ridiculous.
Maybe she cleaned the ear around the canal because the parents don't do it. Q-tips don't fit into little babies ears anyways. Nothing more than a safety q-tip will. Perhaps it was a safety q-tip.
Did you consider the baby was maybe crying because, well, babies cry when you hold them down to cut or file nails, wipe their faces after eating, wash behind their ears etc? If anything, if she was cleaning the outer ear, for a lack of a better term, she should 100% be holding the kid down as secure as possible to prevent any injury no matter how much the baby cries.
So yes, we shouldn't be cleaning kids ears in public but is it really that a big deal?
So you think the fact that a nanny cleans a babies ear, again it can't go into the ear as the diameter of a q-tip is too wide for a babies ear of 4-6months, and the baby crying is a bad thing? All because the baby is distressed? Am I missing something?
Janet, I hate to tell you this but if your babies are crying everytime you wash behind their ears,clip their nails and wash their face after eating,you might want to reconsider your approach!
Watch 'the nanny diaries'. It's not a stellar movie but it portrays you lot quite accurately.
MYOB was good advice. Leave the woman alone. Babies cry alllll the time, they are not always being abused (with a q-tip no less!! who knew it was possible. next thing we know you will be complaining because she wiped food off of the child's face too aggressively, or spoke to the child in an eeevil Jamaican accent, yeesh).
I agree with the poster who called you a busybody, and the one who said this blog oozes of classism and racism.
Right on the nose.
Where was this baby's father? If he wasn't so selfishly absorbed in his "career" he could have been raising his child himself.
Otherwise, the woman he has employed to care for his child has the final say about ear cleaning.
She was right. It is none of your business.
Reconsider my approach? Are you kidding me? If I gently wipe a 4 month olds face with a moist wipe I'm suppose to reconsider how I'm doing it? You are out of your mind. BABIES CRY!!!! No matter how kind and gentle you are.
I think OP was worried about the baby, and felt she had to say something. I was once in a waiting room where a little girl, a toddler, was playing. She had put her grandmother's light scarf around her neck, and was pulling and twisting, while the grand mother was watching her. I was uncomfortable, because IMO kids should not think that scarves are toys or play with anything around their neck, so I ended up saying something to the grandma. I was very polite, and the grandma told me off very politely. Speaking made me feel better, even if in all goodness I am not sure I was at all useful. If the Qtip scene had made me nervous, I would probably have talked to the nanny too.
I have never cared for a child who cooperated when I was using a q-tip around the outsides of their ears. Never in 15 years. Kids generally dislike being poked at (se face washing, hair washing, nail clipping, and temperature taking for other examples).
While I am sure OP had the best of intentions, I am curious as to how close she had to be to see that the caregiver actually had the q-tip IN the ear canal. I would be snippish too, if some stranger, no matter how well meaning, was hovering over me like that.
you're not even supposed to use a Q tip to clean out anyone's ears. I do...but no where on the package does it say thats what they're for.
In fact, in my psychology class, my prof said that you can do damage to your ears if you push the Q tips in too far.
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