Mumsnetters share the biggest mess their children have made while out and about with Nice ‘n Clean

[LucyBMumsnet]

This sponsored discussion is now closed - thank you to everyone who shared their stories

It’s happened to all parents, you turn your back for all of three seconds and what you see on your return shocks you - it’s difficult to comprehend how your child made that much mess! Whether it’s Sudocrem, spaghetti or paint that they’ve managed to cover themselves in, the clean up is more manageable in the comfort of your own home. Baby wipes can be an essential when out and about, but with increasing awareness around their environmental impact, it can be easy to feel guilty about their use. With this in mind and following their launch of plastic free baby wipes Aqualettes, Nice n Clean would like to hear about the biggest mess your child has made while out and about.

Here’s what Nice ‘n Clean have to say: “Kind to little ones and even kinder to the planet. Nice ‘n Clean Aqualettes are truly environmentally friendly baby wipes. The wipes are plastic free and made from plant based, biodegradable fibres helping to ensure a brighter future for children everywhere. Super soft and gentle, each wipe cares for delicate, new skin using a natural pre-biotic to help protect baby’s skin whilst being pH skin neutral.

Not only are they loved by mums and dads nationwide, Nice ‘n Clean Aqualettes are dermatologically tested and paediatrician approved too. As a family business, we know how precious every baby is and how important their future is too. That’s why we’ve made our wipes from biodegradable fibres and our packaging recyclable*. We think looking after little ones and their planet is a big deal. If you think so too, find out more at aqualettes.co.uk. We’d love to hear from Mumsnetters about how they look after their babies' skin whilst they’re out and about.”

What was the biggest mess your child has ever made while out and about? How did you tackle the clean up? Do you have to approach the situation differently if you’re out of the house? Do you feel guilty about using baby wipes containing plastic?

All who share their stories on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Insight T&Cs apply

*Packaging is recyclable where recycling facilities for shopping bags exist

When my little one decided he didn’t fancy his Babyiccino and launched it across a busy cafe floor!

Ok, so this is not my child. But me, when I must have been around 1 year old. I just love telling this story!
So my mum and dad, when they were together - and my dad still - loved to spend their Saturdays at the local car boot sale. Back when they were bigger and better (at least how I recall them growing up!).
I, an ever curious one year old, am sitting in my pushchair while my mum and dad are presumably engrossed in the carboot treasure hunt.
I suppose, after what must have been a good while (gotta get dem deals hun) my mum looks around to me in the push chair (it was forward facing) and a bit shocked and confused, calls over my dad and asks him when he gave me chocolate.
Yes, you probably guessed correctly, I covered myself in my own faeces. Faeces baby, in the middle of a huge car boot sale, far away from home. It wasn't the first time as as I was birthed in my own meconium. However, I have NO idea how she managed to clean that shit up since baby wipes weren't super common back then as they are today (90s), at least not to my mum, and at least what she has told me. Thank the baby wipe gods that they are common today - I don't know what i'd do without them since my son likes to wear his food like a bold fashion statement! And at least now we can wipe and not kill the planet simultaneously.

Mine happened fairly recently with dd. We were having a day out to go to the theatre and all went well until we got there. As we took our seats, a lady squeezed by and knocked dds drink over. It went all over her feet and my coat. We got it mopped up and I went and organised interval drinks so it wouldn’t happen again. At the interval, we head to the bar. Dd picks up her J20 and manages to sort of drop it and punch it at the same time. It went everywhere. All over our table, her coat, into our bag of shopping (containing a white dress, obviously) drenched the expensive piano score we’d bought from the merchandise stand, everywhere. Bar man was surprised at the mess but kindly sent us back to our seats so we didn’t miss the second half. We watched the show, then got the train home. As we left the station we passed a group of people chatting and dd managed to accidentally kick their bottled lager. I say kick, she full on booted it and it shot into the road. She couldn’t have got it further if she’d taken a run at it. She was mortified and the poor owner of the drink was very startled but she apologised nicely and I took her home before she could do any more damage.
This happened over Christmas. Dd is THIRTEEN. Shes never caused as much mess before...

Weaning! DS always dropped food everywhere and made a mess of himself. I always admired parents whos children did not get food in their hair, neck, eyes, ears.....

I always cleared up the floor and surrounding areas before we left, but could tell that the cafe staff were wondering if I was going to or not.

Knocking over a full tub of golden syrup whilst we were baking I didn’t notice and he was too worried to speak up initially - the kitchen was still sticky weeks later despite me scrubbing it

My lad is an absolute clutz with drinks. Out with all my other halfs family, he knocks my full drink over, flooding the table the floor and my starter id only eaten half of! Constantly asking staff for paper towels where hes knocking stuff over🙈

What a fab discussion!!

The biggest mess that has ever been made while out and about was from my son, when he was younger he pooped in his nappy and yes...you guessed it, poop everywhere!!! I didn’t know wether to cry with embarrassment or laugh!
I said to my husband, “right, we gotta get to the public toilets and quickly”
We found some toilets after a short while and I literally stripped him off and had to literally kind of bath him with baby wipes as best as I could, I threw the clothes away it was that bad! If I was at home it would have been easier as i could have put him straight in the bath!

Yes I do feel guilty about using baby wipes containing plastic and I think I might give these new plastic free wipes a go, what a great idea.

Thanks for the giveaway too. I’m loving reading the comments.

My DC once attacked a waiter with a flying kick who offered her a food she did not fancy

My child once broke two eggs in my friends hand bag while we where out.

We're still friends despite egg/bag gate.

When my now teenage ds was small we took him and his siblings to a newly opened "trendy" burger place. You know the type, supposedly family friendly but then you realise it really isn't when there is ambient 'chill out' background music playing and the staff give you a 'look' every time one of the kids makes a noise!
Well ds was about 2 yrs old and a bit (OK, a lot) of a handful. He wouldn't sit at the table for very long so after ordering we let him get up and stretch his legs whilst dh and I took turns hovering around after him.
Now when you took your table at the restaurant the waiter would (for some inexplicable reason) bring over a dish of monkey nuts - it was their thing, you know? The monkey nuts were kept in a massive barrel by the bar. We wondered to ourselves whether the barrel was entirely full of monkey nuts, or just a cut off section at the top and decided it must just be a top section. Surely they wouldn't fill the huge barrel with nuts right? Well. Unfortunately we soon discovered we were wrong. Ds decided to get up for a roam and before we could stop him sprinted to the barrel and hauled himself up by his chubby little paws to peer inside....and we all watched in horror as the entire thing fell over and a great tsunami of monkey nuts spread to all four corners of the restaurant! It seemed to happen in slow motion and everyone just sat in stunned silence as we raced towards him with our arms outstretched "nnnooooooooooo"!! Alas, it was too late. They covered the floor, under everyone's chairs and tables - monkey nuts and monkey nut dust everywhere! Ds just sat there in stunned silence surrounded by piles of the blasted nuts. The worst thing was we had to sit there, red-faced waiting for our food and eat it whilst the poor staff swept it all up with gritted teeth! We did leave a very large tip I seem to remember!
When we got home later ds even had monkey nuts in his nappy! Years later I still can't look at a monkey nut without laughing!

And as for wet wipes - I don't think I could have raised 4 dc's without them! I still carry a packet in my handbag now they're older - they're a must have in my book. Plastic free wet wipes - even better.

DD2 was in the habit of vomiting on me in the bus. On one occasion, it was so bad, I had to change my t-shirt, which was pretty difficult to do discreetly.

DD2 also did a poonami during her baby swimming lesson. She was wearing a swimming nappy but it wasn't up to the onslaught. The swimming instructor spotted the poo washing out of the nappy and told us to get out of the pool. As we went up the steps and walked along the poolside, the massive poo dripped out and we left a trail of watery farces from there into the changing rooms. The worst thing was, all the toddlers waiting by the pool for their lesson burst into tears when they were told the pool was closing for cleaning.

All I could do was shower wipe DD2 with toilet paper and shower her off. I left the poor lifeguard with lots of work.

My son jumped in a very muddy puddle and slipped on his bum he was caked in mud

My kids rooms are an absolute state, but the worst mess either of them has ever made involved dolls and permanent markers. I’m sure their purple and red hair and ‘tattoos’ looked really lovely...they didn’t look so great in my 2 year old DD! It certainly taught me to keep the pens out of reach, though!

When my DD was 2 and potty trained for about 5 months we went to a zoo and play area.

She was at the top of a long slide when she announced 'mummy loo'. I told he RTO come down and we would go.

She came down the slide pooing as she went and got both herself and the slide covered. Luckily I was with a friend who took her off to hose down while I got cleaning products from the staff and scrubbed the area clean.

Or the time a few weeks later when my Friend and I were meeting the head at the local school and our daughters were sat under the desk with some highliters and paper and friends baby brother. They coloured him in. They even striped him off so they could do his belly and back. He was pink, yellow and green. The girls were so proud of themselves.

Feeling like I'd got the nappy changing thing under control I decided to change what I thought was just a wet nappy with my daughter on my knee at my mum's house...yep, you guessed it, poonami. To add insult to injury she hadn't even finished and while I was in a state of poo smeared panic she added a projectile into the mix, it's amazing the distance they can get. I was directly in the line of fire. Thank God for wet wipes and nannies, we got the situation under control and once she was wiped down enough for transport she went straight in the bath :)
We had started feeling bad for the amount of wipes we were using with our little boy, 1 month old now, and have switched to biodegradable. Little changes but it's all moving in the right direction :)

Dropped milk in the supermarket!

Break at services during long journey with 3 under 5s.Carrying toddler dd in to fast food restaurant and she projectile vomits on to the glass doors and horrified diners watch as it slides to the floor. I'm pathetically trying to comfort dd and wipe it but shooed away by an employee with a mop who proceeded to mop doors as well as floor!. We wait sadly in the car as others have their food...dd makes miraculous recovery and demands food(think it was just travel sickness) so dh brings us food as too embarrassing to return to the scene of the crime

Letting my two year old eat lots of dried apricots the day I experimented with 100% recycled nappies was a big mistake. We were in a pub having lunch the moment her copious pop dissolved the useless recycled nappy. Never have I been grateful for baby wipes as I tried to peel her clothes off her, clean her up, clean the pub floor up and dress her in her four year old siblings clothes to get through the rest of our “treat” outing.

My daughters always make a mess when we go to my mums house, she can't say no to them, so its ends up being crazy, My youngest got hold of some felt tips and coloured in the coffee table. I was horrified, my mum just laughed. Luckily the trusty wet wipes managed to clean it off. I prefer not using wet wipes but sometimes there is no other option. When we are home we use Cheeky Wipes.

Probably the time we were out and I gave my son what I thought was a tiny bit of avocado on toast - I looked round and he was plastered in it, and somehow the pram that he wasn't even sitting in had been a victim too. The avocado went grey and was really hard to get out

DD aged 2 projectile vomited in a Food Court once. I jumped up and tried to catch it, but it was like a scene from a horror film. Family at the next table ran over with copious napkins and a pack of their own baby wipes, I was so grateful.

I now carry plenty of baby wipes for use in situations like this, and I’m always offering them to others. I’m not too worried about the impact, as thankfully it’s a rare occurrence.

It involved a tub of Sudocrem and carpet, Oh God. This was D2.

On another occasion D2 (aged 2) managed to knock over a display bathroom - pedestal sink and loo completely smashed. I'm afraid I just picked her up and ran, leaving my Mum to apologise

Our youngest son was looking for his name on the keyrings in a gift shop on holiday. He assumed the display was one of those ones that spun around but it wasn't. As he tried to move it the whole thing fell over and knocked over some cornish pottery. That visit cost me a fortune.

When DS1 was around 5yo we went to this family fun day event. They had a bouncy castle, softplay, rides, and a lady doing face paint and glitter tattoos. It was a scorching hot day and DS had been running around like an excited spaniel so was very hot. He wouldn't sit down in the shade at the table, far too much to see and do, and his dad decided the best way to persuade him to sit down was to let him have a glitter tattoo. I hate glitter, it's like Satan's dandruff, but I went along with it. I took him over to the lady and he sat his little sweaty self in her chair. Two minutes into the tattoo being applied he asked her "is it actual-actual glitter?" and then before she could say yes or no he leaned over and purposely blew right into the big pot of fucking glitter. Hard. Glitter everywhere. All over his face where the sweat immediately glued it to his skin, up his nose, in his mouth, in his hair, in the whites of his eyes which were now a lovely sparkling silver and scarlet. I shoved some money at the lady for the tattoo and the loss of glitter and hustled him to the toilets, sparkling in the sun like extras from the set of a Twilight film. I had to try and wash him in the worlds tiniest sink, including washing his eyes and rinsing his mouth out. Used most of a pack of wipes trying to clean it out of his nose, neck, and where it had gone down the next of his shirt. It was everywhere. And just like Satan's dandruff was almost impossible to fully get rid of. For weeks afterwards I kept finding bits of glitter on him, even in his ear wax. It's been six years and I'm fairly certain that if I looked hard enough I could probably find some now.