Tis the season of bare feet and splinters. We have a deck off the back of the house which Adam loves to play on. I leave the door open so he can go out there as he feels and play. We have an area rug on most of it however he got a few splinters.
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I was at the doctors office on Tuesday and had the nurses look at his feet. Both of them have children so they would know the best way to get them out. Armed with some needles and advice we went home to attempt to remove them, and the advice that if I can’t get them home make an appointment and they will remove them.
Attempt 1 we waited until Adam was asleep. It was almost 11pm when Brian and I teamed up. He held the flashlight and I held Adam down and started to work on the feet. This did not go well. The second I started to touch Adam’s feet he started to wake up. We decided this would not end well and let Adam sleep.
Attempt 2 was the next morning. There was a lot of crying and kicking. I tried when he was sitting up then I ended up pinning Adam down on the bed with my body and attempted to remove them. Still no luck and an hour later my whole body hurt from holding down a kicking screaming two year old without hurting him.
Attempt 3 was the one where I figured everything out and had success. Again I worked on him on the bed but there was no kicking or screaming. There was whining and restlessness but it was much easier this time around.
So your kid has splinters, this is what you will need and what to do.
Supplies
– a great set of tweezers
– a sterile needle
– facecloth
– polysporin
– band-aids
– a distraction
What to Do
1) You want to soak the area of the splinter in warm water and clean the area well. This was easily achieved by giving Adam a bath
2) Find a distraction for the subject. For us it was lying on the bed watching Pink Panther on the iPad. I also gave Adam a pair of tweezers just like “Mommy’s Special Pinchers”
This process can take a while. It was almost an hour because when Adam was getting upset I stopped what I was doing.
3) Depending on how deep the splinter is you may not have to do this. I took the needle and carefully scraped the skin over the splinter. If you can grab the splinter with tweezers and pull it out. That is the ideal way however Adam’s were large and embedded deep. When I had the area open and could get to the splinter with my tweezers I just pulled it out.
4) I put polysporin over the area and covered it with a band-aid. This however was short lived because Adam didn’t like the feel of the band-aid on his feet.
Once Adam understood that this wasn’t going to take forever and I figured out the optimal way to remove the splinters it wasn’t that bad. The trick was to soak the skin, that made things much easier and less intrusive.
I’m glad these ones are out. We’ll have to check Adam’s feet more frequently because I’m sure these aren’t the only ones of the season we’ll have to deal with.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
