I need a reality check... - Page 2

[jeanine123]

I don't think it needs to be zipped up tight in order to be a suffocation hazard. I think that it could be possible to turn into one if baby were to fall over with it on his head and the bag were somehow pulled tight or pushed into baby's nose/mouth. Yeah, it's a scenario that's not all that likely to happen but why take the chance?

BTW, the person I quoted was getting on people for disregarding the fact that the Ziploc bag held knitting and was kept in another bag. I was simply pointing out the fact that that information was not in the initial post that began this thread. Considering the fact that few people read through an entire thread before responding it's entirely possible that folks are continuing to miss out on those bits of info before responding and it's rather silly to reprimand folks for overreacting when they may or may not have read all the way through. Or they may have responded before the additional information was given.

[HappyMommy2]

Originally Posted by rubidoux

...
I am btw only talking about one of the one gallon zip locks. Somehow I can imagine a head going inside other bags a little easier. These are technically big enough for a baby to put over their head, but it is hard for me to imagine that it could be pulled tight and closed, kwim? But I will certainly suspend my disbelief as you all seem pretty definate about it. lol
....

I don't think getting it tight around the neck is the issue. The issue is getting a small square of it covering the mouth, then the child breathing in and making it tight over the mouth. Or a piece of it getting lodged in the back of the throat and cutting off breath.

I hear you on the "hubby going overboard" thing though, my dh is like that too. He says everything is dangerous, and I think it weakens the things that truly are dangerous. I don't want my kids growing up always worried about every little thing!

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by HappyMommy2

I don't think getting it tight around the neck is the issue. The issue is getting a small square of it covering the mouth, then the child breathing in and making it tight over the mouth. Or a piece of it getting lodged in the back of the throat and cutting off breath.

I hear you on the "hubby going overboard" thing though, my dh is like that too. He says everything is dangerous, and I think it weakens the things that truly are dangerous. I don't want my kids growing up always worried about every little thing!

Dh is soooo much like his mother in this respect, and sometimes she's really hard to be around because of it. And he definately feels like she screwed him up by being this way. Sigh...

I am really torn and confused about this stuff now. Though, I swear I wouldn't have been if dh wasn't this way. It has made me feel insecure and questioning my own instincts. There are some things that I'm really over-careful about. Like I do not think having standing water anywhere on our property, bigger than say a dog water bowl, is okay. I would love to use our clothes washer as a wet pail for dipes, for example. But I won't do it because I can easily see how that could end badly -- even though I can't fathom how my little one could climb up there, he is a climber and he loves water and I would never leave water standing in there. If our bathtub drain was backed up I would bail it out completely if I had to wait more than an hour for a plumber. I just couldn't fee comfortable with it in the house. I would not leave a baby pool filled in the back yard and I would not live in a house with a pool. I feel very sure about those things but then this bag issue is in a gray area for me.

[pianojazzgirl]

Oh man, I keep lots of little knitting projects in ziplocks like that around the house (well, in various knitting bags... yes I've got several, lol). For me, like you, it doesn't really hit my radar. I am careful about plastic shopping bags, bread bags, etc, but a small ziplock, with knitting inside it, inside a cloth bag doesn't really worry me. And of course if the ziplock was out and about it would only be because I was right there knitting away, and you can be sure no part of my knitting gear would be left out for a baby to get into if I left the room!

[Sierra]

Originally Posted by jeanine123

BTW, the person I quoted was getting on people for disregarding the fact that the Ziploc bag held knitting and was kept in another bag.

I wasn't "getting on" anyone. I was explaining why I was veering in another direction. The clarifying facts obviously came later, and I was saying "these previous posts addressed this kind of situation, but okay, so now that we know what the situation is..."

Still, was I really the only one who would have clarified before posting? The question was simply "is a one gallon ziploc dangerous?" The answer seems to me to be a clear, "it depends...what are you doing with it?"

it's rather silly to reprimand folks for overreacting when they may or may not have read all the way through. Or they may have responded before the additional information was given.

That was hardly a reprimand.

In any case, OP, here is the thing. Given the recent description of your husband leaping to grab the bag out of your son's hands when ya'll were right there with him, if I were you, I'd be waaaaaaay more concerned about the danger to my child's sense of confidence than I would be about these dangers. Over-the-top overprotective parental behaviors, IMO, come with a high price, paid by children.

[EviesMom]

1-I think your husband is being ridiculous, to be honest. A child putting something in his mouth is a cause for concern. A child across the room oblivious with a bag in the room is in NO danger of any kind. Unless he has lost a family member to bag suffocation or something, he's way over the top.

2-I think the concern with bags is that it will cut off airflow because you cannot breathe through a sheet of plastic. It does not have to be tight or zipped or anything, it can stick to the face from the sucking in of breath. And it's a concern that they will bite off a piece.

3-In his quest for safety, he has probably made the bag more dangerous actually--as said by others, its a biting hazard now.

4-He punched holes in your bag without discussing it with you? I find that creepy, honestly.

5-The bag is the smallest hazard in this example IMO. Knitting needles are a bigger hazard, running with them, falling on them, sticking people with them or himself-put out eyes, poke mouth... And strings of yarn are a strangulation hazard obviously. All of these are okay if you are watching your child, don't let him run with the needles, put his head in the bag, loop yarn around his neck, but none are good "leave child unattended with" items.

[lilyka]

honestly it doesn't have to fit over their heads. it just needs to get pressed against their face somehow. And I can fit a head of lettuce in a gallon bag I don't see why a toddlers head wouldn't fit in there (but my kids heads were kinda on the small side)

All that aside so long as i was supervising I let my youngest play with plastic bags occaisionally. She really loved them....

And for goodness sakes.....one with stuff in it! That you were using!!!I am more concerned about your husbands stress giving him ulcers. But, if it helps him feel better, perhaps you should, for the sake of safety and your dh peace of mind, go splurge on a couple of really nice, breathable, bags in which to tote around your knitting and stuff A mom has to do what a mom has to do, right. If shopping for nice knitting totes will make life safer and happier for everyone you might just need to do it. for their sake, of course.

and then there is the diaper bag itself. really the plastic bag was one of the least dangerous things in there. Diaper bags contain all kinds of dngerous things....thats why we keep them in a bag.

[Tjej]

I don't think it really matters if the bag fits on the head or not. If it is big enough to cover the mouth and nose holes at the same time it is big enough to suffocate a child.

Tjej

ETA: Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread, seems the PP beat me to this.

[*bejeweled*]

Originally Posted by Mountaingirl79

Yeah, I have to agree that even though they can't " zip it up" or seal it, they could still get in a position of suffocation. And why take the chance really?

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by Tjej

I don't think it really matters if the bag fits on the head or not. If it is big enough to cover the mouth and nose holes at the same time it is big enough to suffocate a child.

Tjej

ETA: Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread, seems the PP beat me to this.

So are you saying that you consider a sandwich sized zip lock a suffocation hazard? I actually think that if the gallon bags were made of that same thinner, more pliable plastic that the sandwich bags are made of they might seem more dangerous to me -- like I could see them much more easily forming an airtight barrier against nose and mouth. The thicker gallon bag plastic seems too stiff to be likely to do that. And, when I imagine a 15 month old putting their head in a bag or pulling the plastic tight enough across nose and mouth so that they can't breath, I think, well they're not just going to sit there not breathing, right? Aren't they going to push the bag aside? Do they somehow immediately become unconscious? Or have they simultaneously hit their head or something? I wish their was some public service video that showed how this could happen, in which the child was of course saved from the bag before any harm came to them.

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by EviesMom

5-The bag is the smallest hazard in this example IMO. Knitting needles are a bigger hazard, running with them, falling on them, sticking people with them or himself-put out eyes, poke mouth... And strings of yarn are a strangulation hazard obviously. All of these are okay if you are watching your child, don't let him run with the needles, put his head in the bag, loop yarn around his neck, but none are good "leave child unattended with" items.

This makes me feel better. lol I know it shouldn't, quite, since it just goes to show that I'm leaving more hazards around for my child to play with. But, seriously, it feels so arbitrary to get up in arms about the plastic bag. There are other items in our house that are much more dangerous, but we live with them bc you cannot make everything perfectly and reliably safe. Augie LOVES to bang on our living room windows and it's a little scary bc they are big panes of glass and I hate to think what it would be like if it broke. Ugh. But we haven't decided to live in a house with no windows.

I found dh's stapler on the floor today and I had this vision of Augie opening it up and swallowing one or more staples. As far as I know dh hasn't worried one iota about the stapler. But I felt like it was really worth putting it out of reach. I think that dh and I have different things that trigger us to worry. But when he worries he wants to make sure that I'm equally freaked out by the danger bc he believes that I'm too laid back. And when I worry, i'm more likely to keep it to myself bc I believe he's too uptight. I suppose tat's a vicious cycle, since it makes me appear to be more laid back than I really am.

Thanks for your thoughts, mamas! It does help to hear your opinions.

[EviesMom]

Originally Posted by rubidoux

This makes me feel better. lol I know it shouldn't, quite, since it just goes to show that I'm leaving more hazards around for my child to play with.

I really didn't mean it that way. I mean that none of them are inherently so dangerous that you should run across the living room to snatch them up when the child is not playing with them. You can never make everything perfectly safe, and you'd make yourself crazy trying to. You just have to supervise.

[swd12422]

I'm with PPs who say the bag doesn't need to fit over the child's head to be a suffocation hazard. Any piece of pliable plastic is a hazard for a toddler/baby, either b/c of a choking hazard or getting it "stuck" over the nose/mouth so the child can't breathe.

That being said, I'd be more worried about my kid waving knitting needles around than the bag in your situation. (And my son would be more likely to bite off a piece of plastic and choke than manage to suffocate himself with a bag full of yarn, too, but that's beside the point.)

I get where you're coming from. I also get where your DH is coming from. I was raised by people of your DH's nature and they see the danger in EVERYTHING. And just when I think they're being a little too ridiculous, there's a news story somewhere about a kid who died/got hurt doing XYZ, and yeah, it's an anomaly, but I'm sure it doesn't make that child's family feel much better.

You can't make yourself insane running around trying to keep all this stuff away from your kids, but you can have a watchful eye. (I chose the former, and early toddlerhood was not fun for me...) Let your DH poke his holes, and you sit back and relax, and keep your eyes open, and you'll be fine!

[lilyka]

There are going to be a million and one things in your home that are dangerous for your baby. Just be mindful of that and make sure that your baby is somewhere you can see them. There is nothing that can be made safe enough for your baby to be left unsupervised with and nothing so dangerous that it can't be used so long as it is used safely.

[Tjej]

Originally Posted by rubidoux

So are you saying that you consider a sandwich sized zip lock a suffocation hazard? Yeah, I think I would. I sure wouldn't leave one in a crib with a kid. That's sort of my "standard" for suffocation hazard - what I would allow totally unsupervised.I actually think that if the gallon bags were made of that same thinner, more pliable plastic that the sandwich bags are made of they might seem more dangerous to me -- like I could see them much more easily forming an airtight barrier against nose and mouth. The thicker gallon bag plastic seems too stiff to be likely to do that. Believe it or not, I had a 4yo pull one such bag over his head during a children's time at church - toys had been in the bag and he randomly wanted to see if it would fit. It did (and we saw him and took it off, but UGH! It was tight on his face and down to his upper lip when we pulled it off, IIRC).And, when I imagine a 15 month old putting their head in a bag or pulling the plastic tight enough across nose and mouth so that they can't breath, I think, well they're not just going to sit there not breathing, right? Aren't they going to push the bag aside? It's not that they pass out, it is that they don't necessarily have the presence of mind to help themselves. Like why kids aren't safe in 2" of water.Do they somehow immediately become unconscious? Or have they simultaneously hit their head or something? I wish their was some public service video that showed how this could happen, in which the child was of course saved from the bag before any harm came to them.

I sound like I'm some sort of ultra "you must do this" person - I'm not. I don't see anything wrong with you having your knitting in a plastic bag. But if your child would be around it without you right there, then yeah.

Tjej