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What do you do with a "floater?"
Filed under: Toddlers Preschoolers, Development/Milestones: Babies
Ahh, the joys of parenting. One minute, you're giving little LuLu a bath and the next you've come face to face with a floater.The first time this happened to my family, I recoiled in horror. What? What...is...that? Is that poop? Yes it was. Later on, as we grew accustomed to finding little bath time presents, it became more of a nasty inconvenience.
So, when I saw this post by Merry Munchkins, I just had to write about it.
"I attempted to shake the poop from my fingers, grabbed a pile two feet high of paper towels and a hefty bottle of bleach spray and started scrubbing the tub like it was the foulest sinner in hell and it was my job to get him ready for Sunday Church."
This is priceless. Pure gold. What she writes is the truth: Poop happens and you deal with it.
But, somewhere, there's a parent who will experience his or her first floater tonight and I'm ready to be there to help him out. Personally, I thought that the best way to combat a poop submarine would be to get one of those fish nets at the pet store to fish the offending object out.
Anyone out there tried that one? What did work? Do you have a typical course of action when this happens or do you just do what I do and call your partner in?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
12-01-2006 @ 12:08PM
LadyBug said...We always used a disposable cup, so we could just dump the poo in the toilet, then throw the cup in the trash.
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12-01-2006 @ 11:34AM
Kellie said...Jagger will be 4 in January and we have never had a floater. knock on wood.
No, my 22 month old nephew pooped in my parents jaccuzzi the other day. Everyone was in and who knows how long it was floating around before they noticed it.
I am gagging just thinking about it.
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12-01-2006 @ 11:36AM
Kellie said...oops, it didn't add the rest.
My dad got a noodle strainer and scooped. He then drained the jaccuzzi and shocked it.
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12-01-2006 @ 12:07PM
courtney said...Hahaha...funnest post ever! We drain the tub- clean the kids off in the sink just to be safe. Then I usually have to take all the toys out bleach them and get poo out with toilet paper-flush it down and scrub the tub till it gleams! We actually changed bath time for a while because my youngest got in the habit of pooin right after dinner (usual bath time) we just put off bath time until he did the deed. That cut down on the floaters.
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12-01-2006 @ 12:45PM
Ginny said...My two are 5 and 6 and we've never had floaters....knock on wood. I rememeber sharing the bath with my little brother when I was a kid. HE was a floater maker. YUCK. Not sure how my mom handled it, I know I got out of the tub post haste. :o
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12-01-2006 @ 12:37PM
Tamyu said...My son is 2, and we`ve never experienced this problem. In fact, we`ve never so much as experienced and out of diaper incidents. Even trying with the potty!
I guess some kids can do it wherever, and some kids (like my son) need to squat in a certain corner!
When I was small, my (then a baby) cousin would go the second she hit water. Bath, pool, even the slip and slide. I hope she grew out of it.
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12-01-2006 @ 3:21PM
ann adams said...By the time I started raising the girls, I was so used to floaters I just reached in, got it out, got the kid out (or vice versa - I was working pretty quickly), rinsed the kid off, washed the tub and my hands.
I don't think a lot fazes me anymore.
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12-01-2006 @ 5:37PM
Heidi said...That reminds me of the one and only time I convinced my husband to get in the tub with our son. It had never happened before to us, but our nephew had pooped in our tub years before.
Granted, the poop was of the less firm variety and immediately started breaking down, but before it could get anywhere near my husband he'd lept out screaming "Get it off me! Get it off me!"
Thanks for the laugh!
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12-01-2006 @ 3:32PM
Lil Liberal said...Hm. Assuming it was a healthy solid poo and not illness-related diarrhea, I'd probably just scoop the poop out with whatever was handy (hand included-I'm not too squeamish so long as I can wash my hands after), shrug, drain the tub and hose the kid down with the tub-hose-attachment thingy that I use to wash the dogs, and perhaps apply a new sudsy layer of soap and rinse that off too, depending on how repulsive the floater was. Then the bathtub would get a wash-down too, but then I always wash the bathtub before using it anyway. The dogs hang out in it during the day, so if I don't give it a scrub then I end up with dog hair sticking to me. :)
Poop is really only hazardous if it contains parasites or an illness, or if it gets into drinking water.
I think the fact that I live in NYC and have to pick up dog poo in plastic bags makes me a little more relaxed about the whole nature of bodily functions. :p It's hard to get upset about a little floater when you've got 160lbs of dog that will occasionally do something like skid through another dog's poop at the dog run, requiring that you stick their foot into a bag and transport them into the bathtub for a wash-down.
I think that using too much bleach is more likely to be a hazard to myself/the kid than the poop is. :) I wouldn't want the kid to stay in the tub with the poop water, but it just seems like it's over-reacting to freak out and attempt sanitization to super-human levels. A simple wash-out with cleanser should be more than enough.
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12-01-2006 @ 3:17PM
cheryl said...I haul out the child, call my partner in, and run shrieking from the room. I have no idea how he handles it, but the tub always looks clean enough afterwards.
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12-01-2006 @ 4:35PM
frannie Planet said...Hey-floaters happen in community swimming pools, too. I thought that the residents would expect me to drain the pool, or shock it--but nearly every bather I talked to was happy with scoop, check the chlorine, and then wait enough time for the pump to cycle most of the water; I knew that that was enough--I have a degree in Biology and in Chemistry, and a pool is full of chlorine (exactly the same stuff as bleach) and even the full rinse and scrub the tub is not necessary, since the kid already consumes some of the yukky stuff daily with no harmful effects. The only problem is something that isn't solid, or if there is more than one kid in the tub. The soap in the water would be enough to break down the cell walls of most any bacteria, and would also kill just about any virus. I think it is just Us: we feel yucky about it, so we feel we have to do something. Hey if it was just you, in a lovely bubble bath, and a small bit floated up, would you worry about anything more than getting it out of the tub? Me--it would only get me out of the tub if I was nearly done bathing anyway...
gross, eh?
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12-02-2006 @ 10:46AM
wallaby said...If you think your own kid's floaters are gross - when I used to lifegaurd people used to poop in the pool. Regularly. Sometimes we even found floaters in the pool during "Adults Only" swim. Now that was REALLY nasty.
I can deal with my own kids poop (I mean, you get used to it from the diapers etc anyway) but poop from the public at large = blech.
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12-02-2006 @ 3:29PM
Brenda said...I was cuddling my baby in the tub one day when I really needed a long soak because my back was sore. He got hungry and I thought he was past the pooping when eating phase so I fed him.
Biiiiiiiiiiig mistake! And this was baby poop, so you know what that is like. I emptied the tub, then I washed him in the baby bath, the I took a shower and scrubbed the tub with a sponge under my feet while I did. Nasty!!!! And I was home alone so I only got about 10 min in the shower before the screaming started!!!!
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