T o let my dc pick up food from the floor and eat it?

[mrsruffallo]

I just had a rather heated discussion with SIL who basically told me I was being irresponsible letting my dc eat food they have dropped on the floor.She thought it was disgusting, and didn't allow her dc to do it- even at home!!!Beacause she said, you never knew what people had on their shoes. I think she is wrong and my dc have certainly never been ill because of eating off the floor!!
Is this another example of people being paranoid about 'germs' or do any of you agree with her? I just wanted to know what the general attitude to this is, so , please fire away.....

I would be more careful as far as pets are concerned, myself.

My cats get up to all sorts - digging holes for their poop, killing mice and birds etc. They then come in and can trail all sorts of stuff all over the carpet. Not sure these are the kind of germs my DCs need to get exposed to TBH.

Obviously I clean up after the cats but I'm not necessarily the fastest hooverer in the west.

I can understand what you're saying grim but don't your children ever just play in the garden?

If they do they will be picking all those germs up by themselves anyway - we used to make mud pies and eat them

fwiw, farm children have been shown in some studies to have the lowest rates of allergenic diseases such as asthma and exzema. All that mud and muck has to count for something in the process... Can't just be the healthful countryside.

my antenatal class teacher said she gave up sterilising her baby's equipment at around 6 months when she noticed that one of her favourite chew toys was the pushchair wheels.

I was brought up on a farm and can say (hand on heart) that nothing was ever sterilised for me or my children (ran under boiling water when first weaning and breastfed).

YANBU. I let them eat of the floor in and outside, especially after seeing something on Richard and Judy or This Morning or something like that where they took samples of the pavement and someone's carpet and the place with the most germs turned out to be the carpet!
Like most MN-ers said before this: a bit of germs are good for them. TBH my 2 dc's are one of the healthiest children around.
What about this one: at work I see plenty of mums being told off for putting a used nappy on the table (usually in nappy bag) and a milk bottle a few inches away from that. I keep thinking: what's going to happen: are the germs from the nappy going to jump 2 or 3 inches to the bottle? As long as hands are washed between changing the nappy and feeding the baby I can't see a problem. Especially as there is just not a lot of place to put stuff in the hospital, especially in a 4 bedded bay. But of course I keep quiet about my views in case people think I'm a dirty cow not worth of being a midwife.

Fio. We had a rat 2 years ago and I really cottoned on to that one when the poison we put out for what we thought was a mouse dissapeared tray and all. The next day we found an apple dragged from the one side of the room to the other. I must say that I did keep my dc's from fallen food at that time as you could not be sure whether it was actually the rat that had put it on the floor in the first place. Luckily the nice men from the council came quickly and the rat is no more.

Wanderingtrolley:

"Remember, carpet fluff can kill."

Good job. My DD and her cousin were playing a game yesterday that involved wrapping themselves up in a fluffy rug from my SIL's lounge floor. Both had to have fluff retrieved from their mouths. I really can't be bothered to worry about food off floor even outside. Both have healthy immune systems.

10 second rule i say

No. YANBU.

YANBU
Hey all 3 of mine eat stuff from the floor, it's not always food either!
I even picked my DT's dinner out of the cuttlery draw the other day, as I knocked it in there and was not about to make more for the screaming tribe (cuttlery draw was not that clean either)
and they have all survived

youknownothing : gotta be 10 seconds. I got MS and it would take me a while to bend down
Kids have made it to teenagehood none the worse for wear.

Healthy germs and all that!

Although there must be a name for that kind of cringe you do when you catch a glimpse of your toddler at a mums and tots group eating some other kid's half chewed biscuit they found on the floor.