how to clean grazes in a wiggly 3 year old?

[SoTiredOfTheWheelsOnTheBus]

DS loves running around, and now that the weather is getting better () is spending more and more time outside. He's also tripping over a bit more - no big deal, he's just starting to get to the grazed knees and hands stage. He got a bit of a graze yesterday, which was minor and easy to clean up, but it got me thinking, what if it was a bit worse, with dirt/grit in it - how do you clean up a wiggly 3 year old, who will barely stay still to wash his hands? If they have splinters, how to you manage to remove them? If I get a splinter, I sterilise a needle and try to ease it out, but I really don't see that working with a toddler! He just about keeps still so that I can clean the graze, put some 'special cream' and plaster on, if necessary, but if I start to gently prod it to check it is clean, he's off.

It's a general part of childhood, having scabby knees, I just wondered how other people coped with it?

i would pour diluted tcp or dettol over it, or get a cotton ball soak it and squeeze it so the antiseptic just runs over the wound and cleans it without touching it. You can also get spray savlons etc.

Mine won't let me touch grazes so I get them to wipe the graze with an antiseptic wipe themselves and make sire they have a bath asap.

I've never felt the need to prod to check - anything still in there will come out of it's own accord.

I do try not to put plasters on so that any germs left don't get a lovely warm moist atmosphere to grow in.

With the splinters I put magnesium sulphate paste on and then a plaster on the top. The paste draws the splinter either right out or right on to the surface so it's dead easy to get out with tweezers.

My mum used to put me in a Savlon bath (diluted obviously) in the evening. My DH's mum did the same.

I have some wound wash from Boots. Not actually used it yet but I think I just need to spray it on and it sloshes out the debris.

Whatever you do be careful if you use a spray on plaster for a small person. I used one on me (high pain threshold) and nearly hit the ceiling it stung so much. Took a while to stop hurting too, didn't just sting for a few seconds.

(GP)

Unless DS has fallen over in something really filthy, I wouldn't worry too much. Even if you clean the graze area, all of us (no matter how clean we are) have millions of bacteria living on the skin. These are far more likely to infect a graze than anything on the ground where he falls and there's not a lot you can do about them - cleaning removes some of them temporarily but they will be back within hours.

Assuming your DS has no health problems and has been immunised against tetanus, the chances of him getting a serious skin infection are miniscule. I've been a doctor for 14 years, much of that time in A&E, and I honestly can't remember ever seeing a child with an infected graze.