I may have to get my little squirt (for cloth nappies) set up near the change table and give her a spray of that at every change instead... LOL
Now it makes me worry if I hurt her or not last night - I'm not too clear headed at 3am!!! :(
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I may have to get my little squirt (for cloth nappies) set up near the change table and give her a spray of that at every change instead... LOL
Now it makes me worry if I hurt her or not last night - I'm not too clear headed at 3am!!! :(
You should be fine Mel, sorry to make you stress hon! I just heard a icky story from my MCHN (funnily it was when she was explaining fused labia) and so I like to be clear coz obviously some people don't really know. If in doubt rinse ;)
i very gently part her labia with my two fingers and wipe the inside gently with a wipe, im sorry but there is NO WAY i am leaving poo in there... as long as you are gentle i think it is better to wipe than to not... besides once she 'discovers herself' you'll realise exactly how gentle you were being, in comparison to her hand poking around down there... (has anyone elses toddler got there hand down there as soon as the nappy comes off???)
Yep my 20 month old always does it..and now my 9 month old finds it fasinating as well!:
i cringe with how 'uncareful' she is... it makes me cross my legs....
i sometimes say 'don't hurt your bottom' and navigate her hand elsewhere, but really i have no idea what i should be doing.... i know i should probably be doing nothing, but i don't like watching it!!
Mel,
I used to have to wipe in a little. Not actually inside her vagina, but I open her labia a little and wipe the poop off. When she was bf every now and then she's so a really huge and disgusting poo so I'd just wash her bum under the bathroom sink, or if I felt like it just give her a bath. I couldn't leave any poo in there, I'd be more worried of leaving too much 'yuck' on her and infection than hurting her. If I was hurting her, I'm sure she'd cry and let me know!
Sorry - I was posting from my mobile last night, and then fell asleep watching the Opening Ceremony, and so never got a chance to come back and clarify...
When changing girls, you should only ever really need to part the labia majora. In most little girls, the labia minora sit really close together anyway, so it would be very rare for any poo to actually make it inside the labia minor or inside the vagina itself. So when you gently part the folds of their vulva, as a rule, you should only be moving the labia major - the minora will usually stay together.
Once I've done that, I just gently wipe down, front to back, with a wipe.
The concern is from really over-zealous people who try and part the labia minor and wipe inside the vagina itself. This is unnecessary, and can, as Niliac mentioned, cause problems like infection (vaginitis) and tearing, both of the hymen and of the genital mucosa.
If you are really worried, use two wipes. Gently part the labia majora with two fingers, and then use one wipe down one side, and one down the other - you will be wiping between the labia majora and labia minora on each side. The pressure of the wipe kind of flattens down the minora, forming a natural barrier that prevents you poking at the vagina itself, IKYWIM. I honestly think that most well-adjusted parents will not be so rough that they would cause problems, though. And baby poo is fairly slippery and comes off with a minimum of fuss.
If there is so much poo there that you are having trouble getting it off, then certainly bath them.
I guess it's one of those questions that, like one poster said, you just don't know when you've never had to do it - we had a very similar thread about changing boy's nappies not so long ago.