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Hand sanitizer safe if fingers go in mouth and nose?


amo_mea_filiis.
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Your best source of information on your question is to call poison control. They will know exactly what dosage of whatever product you are using could cause problems. It's a free call and you will get medically reliable information. That is who doctors call when they are unsure.

 

ETA: The nonalcoholic hand sanitizers contain ingredients that are suspected to trigger antibiotic resistance. That would include any "natural" ones if they actually work, as well as triclosan. These are akin to chemical warfare. I wouldn't use them with my child in their mouth all the time.

 

Alcohol based hand sanitizers work in a way more like dropping a physical bomb. The alcohol (bleach does this too) dries up the cell walls. They don't develop resistance to that. 

 

I do know (from having a kid eat some alcohol based hand sanitizer years ago and double-checking my memory because of work with kids,  that Poison Control was not at all alarmed . A 2 year old needs something like 2 full teaspoons of it to get "drunk" which is a huge amount of hand sanitizer from a typical drop or two from the pump kind. (I think the foam kind might produce more)  What they told me to do was to give my kiddo some sugar because the main effect if he had gotten more than I thought would be a drop in blood sugar.

 

So just call Poison Control and see what they say.

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May I suggest that every time you see that finger head toward the nose or even in the nose that you hand your son a tissue and require him to use it? That will redirect him to a new habit to take care of the problem.

Absolutely this!

My dd went through a really, really disgusting phase of this last allergy season...and it always tended to happen at the most embarrassing public moments as well:)

I finally started a seek and destroy mission-I sat and watched like a hawk, and every.single.time Isaw that index finger headed upward? I stopped it en-'root' with a tissue. I made sure play was interrupted as well, and finally made her either come and get a tissue or find one in the bathroom.

Eventually, she got the message that picking her nose equalled play interruption/mommy interference and ceased...for the most part:)

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Yeah, i went through phases of this problem.  Constantly offering a tissue helped.  allergy meds helped.  accepting that eating boogers is gross, but not actually dangerous, and just trying to ignore it actually worked pretty well, too.  The worst offender was horrified when his younger brother started doing it . . only 2 or 3 years after he had stopped . . . 

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