to not want grandparents to constantly put their fingers in my son's mouth so he can gum them?

[ndavy]

My in-laws spent all weekend doing this to my son so he could gum their fingers. The day after they left he had a bit of an upset tummy (although the two may not be related). I find it quite revolting and have asked my husband to ask them not to do it if we see them doing it again. He's agreed so I don't think he thinks I'm being unreasonble but I wanted to see what others thought. Also, I'm worried about offending them, but should my feelings on this be more important?!

Thanks!

It made me feel a bit urggghh when my MIL was doing the same thing to my ds1. I got my dh to tell her to make sure she washed her hands!

Slightly more relaxed with ds2 but not much, and I am generally pretty relaxed about babies picking up and gumming things. I think its the fact that its hands and fingers that make me a bit squeamish for some reason. Ds2 seems to have a greater need to suck and will grab fingers and shove them in his mouth so I have now bought a dummy which people like my MIL can use, which I at least know where it has been.

I do find it odd, tbh,but I´m getting visions of ILs obsessed with sticking fingers in poor baby´s mouth

"If you stand and watch in the toilet of JL, marks etc the number of people who do not wash their hands" - have you really got nothing better to do?

laydeestardust - i don't think they are unclean but do men always wash their hands after going to the loo?

Well I think the answer is a teething ring tbh.

If baby is happy with his fist, then I can´t really understand why they do it.

diddl - it was getting to that point. There are photos of it (on bloody facebook!), I overheard them talking about it on a couple of occasions and several times they mentioned how strong his chewing was! I'm just praying for a tooth soon as I'm sure that will stop them.

ndavy-the ones in my family do-maybe they're just an excessively clean minority?

ndavy - I wouldn't put alot of things that my DS's have put in thier mouth in mine. Including a snail freshly picked from the garden They are perfectly healthy though

No, that's just gross. I'm of an older generation, so to speak, but when my DCs were babies if I'd have caught someone else sticking their appendages where they don't belong I'd have had words to say.

Even if your young baby tries to put someone else's fingers in his mouth when he's teething (because teething babies will reach for anything for comfort) people shouldn't comply, simply because of the risk of passing on bacteria. I thought everyone knew that.

And, yes, once babies get to the grabbing/mobile stage they will put various things in their mouths, but I think that nature's got that one sorted because that behaviour is more likely to happen at a later stage when a baby's immune system is geared up for that.

As a matter of interest - how old are your in-laws?

My baby always sucks on my fingers. I don't see the problem, unless they're particularly grubby.

I'm sure DS has chewed on the PILs fingers, but they are obsessively clean so don't see the problem. I can't really worry too much since I turned my back on DS for a minute and turned back to see he was chewing on one of DH's dirty socks from the pile of washing!

No biggie ..builds up babies immune system

Don't see the problem at all. It's not like they are random passers by. I wouldn't have cared if gps had done that to dd and she's my pfb. I'm sure they are capable of managing their own hygiene.

By RedLeaves Fri 19-Mar-10 19:42:55
"Yeah but they can't always get the filth out from under their finger nails can they? Yuck yuck yuck. Another one of those generational differences".

Who can't?

Are you being staggeringly ageist or have I misunderstood this?

Maybe its just wrinkly fingers that are bad

Well there is a touch of that throughout this thread, isn't there?

Or am I just being over-sensitive as I career towards mid-life?

yep I thought that too ...[grumpy old woman]