Spinoff to How Do you Handle the Holidays...

how do you go to someone else's house and politely ask any and everyone in the house to wash their hands before they touch the LO's? when i go to my house i dont care...i say WASH YOUR HANDS. my DH has no balls (LOL) and wont tell anyone in his family to wash their hands and they are ALWAYS SICK!

 

If you are going to this house for the day or longer, I would take a pump bottle of hand sanitizer. It only takes a second for them to wash (although not as good as a thorough hand washing) and should help protect against germs. But with that being said, they are your babies. If you want them to wash their hands, then ask.

 

I am a bad microbiologist. I don't ask people to wash their hands anymore.

 

That is what we plan to do as well when we get to the in-laws house. And DH's parents are sister are pretty good about doing that. But other visitors probably won't be so conscientious and I'm a little apprehensive about that. Hopefully I will get a backbone and ask his aunt, uncle, etc to please use the hand sanitizer before touching the babies.

 

I agree, there is really no way to do it without flat out asking. Most people will understand and, at the worst, will think you are being overprotective. Nothing wrong with that!

 

I could care less who might seen offended. This is the WORST part of the year, and I know yours have spent their fair share of time in the NICU. It should be a no brainer. I would bare teeth at anyone even coming close to my kids. Not my fault they aren't careful, but I AM careful, so it would be my fault it people got all touchy with my kids before sanitizing.

Don't let the thought of..."well...I don't wanna be rude and ask them...". It could be you dealing with a sick baby or babies afterwards. Being "pretty good" at it needs to be 100% good at it I would think.

Maybe it's just me, but I am VERY paranoid about my fragile babies and this time of year. While I can't prevent everything, I sure can set some guidelines in place for a deterrent

 

:thanks:

WELL SAID!
you're right. f it. im going to start saying something.
they always say - well i washed my hands before i came. like - are you SERIOUS!

 

Good!!!

Maybe they picked their nose on the way over(who knows)...

 

What he said

 

and FYI...I wasn't knocking you, just trying to help motivate ya to be a lil more vicious

 

I just announce to the whole room! I also make it sound funny like if you get the babies sick, they are staying with you!!! Or I request people to sanitize up to their elbows. It was super hard to ask at first, but after dealing with a cold with both of the babies at the same time, I have NO problem asking. My MIL already thinks I am bossy with the babies but I think thats a lot better than being a neglectful mother!

 

I don't know what to do. There are going to be well over 20 people at our Thanksgiving (at a relative's house). I could announce it to the whole room. I thought about putting a bottle of hand sanitizer out with a sign next to it, but a lot of people probably won't see it. I thought about sticking a sign to eat baby that says "wash your hands before touching me" or something like that. My LOs just got over the flu and we had over 2 weeks of sickness here. :-(

I'm also worried about people who are kind of sick still showing up. (I used to be one of those people. I would go to work or other events with a cold because I didn't feel that bad and don't like to let anything slow me down. Now I feel kind of guilty about doing that).

 

Guess I'm a bad mommy too, I never did ask people to wash their hands

If that's what you want, as pp's have said, just tell them flat out. You can make it funny/amusing but in the end, you still just have to tell them

 

You just have to tell them, I know how you feel because I am so not an outspoken person but they are your babies so you have to stand up for them. Thankfully my DH is really picky about hand washing when we have babies and always asks the person trying to touch/hold the baby if they washed yet. LOL
I always have hand sanitizer available and I plan to give anybody who wants to touch/hold my new baby a squirt before they are allowed.
Honestly though I think it is quite ridiculous that we even need to ask/tell people to do this, I find it rude that anybody would try to touch/hold a baby without washing first. It's not like it's hard and why would you want to risk getting an innocent little baby sick? Seems like common sense to me.

 

We tag team 'em. I keep hand sanitizer in the diaper bag. While I work on getting them out of their carseats, DH starts just squirting people with hand sanitizer. Most people, especially with H1N1, are pretty respectful right now. If they aren't- who cares? How often do you see these people? People who are your 'true' family- in your lives daily- should know how important healthy babies are to you. It is a no-brainer. And while I would go to work with a cold in the past, I'd NEVER hold someone's baby while sick. That's just wrong.