am i overreacting? worried and can't sleep

[TaraFlapalata]

my friend visited today and as soon as she stepped in the house she grabbed the hands of my almost 6 month old DS and rubbed them with her hands, before i could stop DS (i was holding him), he then shoved both his hands in his mouth and started sucking on them.

i'm particularly worried as this friend has two dogs, one with an ear infection at the moment - she left them in the car while she came in the house, she had just taken them for a walk and i saw her scratch their tummies before she locked the car.

i'm absolutely petrified about what might have been transferred to my baby, i can't sleep and feel abssolutely sick, i'm actually shaking and on the verge of tears.

can anyone offer any reassurance? i am so worried. how long would it take for any signs of illness to begin? what should i be looking out for? am i completely overreacting?

i know it's 2.30am but please someone be out there!

lol, when the mw visited me at home for the first time after dd1 was born, my dog came lolloping in from the garden and slobbered mud all over my pfb's head. myself, the mw and the baby all survived.

he's 6mos. i think he'll be just fine. his immune system may even be a little bit stronger as a result.

oh god, nickoftime (so true!!) - thank you for replying,

i think a lot of the worry is that i don't have a dog at the moment but i did grow up with one years ago and all i could think of was my mother telling us to make absolutely sure we washed our hands at all times after touching the dog as they have horrible things on them that can make you terribly ill, oh and that dog poo germs can make you go blind among other things...

this is also my first baby...

go to sleep

your baby will be fine.

all of mine used to stick their hands ijn the dog's water as soon as they could crawl (revolting, yuk) but they are all still alive - i promise.

Just to back up what NickOfTime says; your baby will be fine. My DS2 used to eat dried cat food that even the cats wouldn't eat. :) Please, relax, and sleep.

baby will be fine! I had tonnes of problems with worrying about things I had no control over such as bugs and needing to know where my passport was at 3am became reallly important. Think it was lack of sleep, hormonal and pts from the birth. DD2 has a waaaay more relaxed existance.

DS2 is an absolute horror for eating stuff. Ever since he could crawl he has been fascinated and obsessed by the Iams cat food.

Ditto mud.

And sand.

And a snail.

Yes you are completely over-reacting but everyone does at some point or other.

Id have worried about this with ds who is now 3, dd who is 2 weeks gets sneezed on, coughed on and generally poked by her big brother (who touches the cat, mud, unspeakable things) unfortunately so whilst I keep things as clean as I can its kind of an uphill struggle so Ive had to relax a little!

bless you, hope you got back to sleep ok. your DS will be absolutely fine

thank you for your replies, i got back to sleep eventually.

i should also add that she had a horrible cold too and was coughing the whole time she was round which i expect he'll probably get. she kept touching his hands even right after she'd coughed! am extremely angry at myself for not saying anything.

even though it's now daytime (and things always seem worse at night) i still can't help but worry!

Well, he might get the cold, I guess, and it wasn't very considerate of your friend to get close to him tbh. But then he will be getting colds anyway, so it might as well be his first one.Or he might not get it.

Wrt the dog, the poo germs might be present in the dogs that haven't been dewormed, but even then your ds would have to shove a handful of it in his eye or mouth to become sick. The stories of being blinded by them are so very rare.

DD once ate a lump of cat sick. Now that's disgusting.

he needs to get colds to build up his immune system anyway even though it's not nice

thanks everyone - i will try to relax now!