Tuesday, May 24, 2016

How much snot can a snot-sucker suck?


     This might be the best idea.
     Or not.
     I really can't tell.
     We don't have a newborn, anymore. Haven't had one for, geez, almost two decades.
    And when we did, I seem to remember a blue bulb, with a nozzle at one end, used—by my wife God bless her—to extract snot from their noses.
    So maybe the "NoseFrida—The SnotSucker" is a huge improvement over the blue bulb system.
   I'll let you judge.
   It certainly caught my eye, as I was trucking through Bed, Bath & Beyond last week. Or its clear, bright Swedish graphics did. No question what's going on here. Though I did, skidding to a stop, think, "What the hell?!?"
     I would recommend a visit to the fridababy web site for all those who find themselves tasked with what they call "sticky situations." The yuck factor is balanced by friendly graphics and unflinching copy help gild over what they're talking about with a shiny veneer of art. The text points out that a filter is involved which keeps the sucked snot from being drawn into the mouth of the parent, which is almost reassuring.
    A NoseFrida, including four all-important filters, is $15.99. They sell them everywhere. Nordstom carries it.
    Notice their other products. NoseFrida is only the flagship device. There is also Windi, "The GasPasser," a valve designed to be inserted in your baby's posterior, to ease its farts out and reduce gas pain. Another product that might be vastly helpful. 
     Or Fridet, "the ButtWasher" designed to replace moist towelettes.
     There's more, but you get the picture.  
     They seem to be trying to corner the gross bodily substances market.
     As a fan of products, and marketing, generally, if not these in specific, I had to pass them along, and seek your thoughts. They're sold all over the world, so someone must buy them.
     My errand at Bed, Bath & Beyond, by the way, was to buy special pants hangers for my 20-year-old, who is spending his summer in Washington, D.C. His mom is under the illusion that only the proper hanger stands between him and hanging up the dress pants he needs to wear every day at his internship.  I assured my wife that, considering how his pants end up with the rest of his clothes, in bunched knots piled on the floor of his bedroom, the type of hanger they aren't being hung upon is really not all that significant. Wire hangers will do the job nicely. But she was adamant, insisting that hangers have powers to draw a man to order, to paraphrase Homer.
    The quote, from Book XIX of the The Odyssey, as translated by Robert Fagles, is: "Iron has powers to draw a man to ruin." I've seen it quoted more poetically as "The blade itself incites to deeds of violence," but I'll be damned if I can find which edition that's from. 
     What they mean, in essence, is: the tool encourages the action. So a SnotSucker draws — quite literally — a baby to better breathing. Or so is the theory. Anybody ever use these things? 


20 comments:

  1. Blue bulbs only here.

    The snot sucker is just too gross to contemplate.

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  2. They used to send baby home from the hospital with a blue bulb... did the job. The snot-sucker is making me gag.

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  3. My children swear by them for their babies as I gag. Babies sleep on their backs now- no mucous can leave the nose and migrate to crusty sheets. Also, babies cannot draw up their legs to expel gas from this position. . New problems, new solutions. No sudden death syndrome- but kids with some sleep impediments. Parents need their sleep too-

    I cannot speak to the bumwasher- I know parents are trying to reduce chemical exposure in wipes. Soon washcloths will return to service. Or bidets.

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    Replies
    1. WaterWipes are great! They're readily available on Amazon or eBay. Target advertises them too, but I haven't looked for them in a brick-and-mortar store. https://www.waterwipes.com/

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  4. Yes, the blue bulb extractor was good enough.

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  5. My daughter has used a snot-sucker for her babies -- it sounds gross, but it works great and really helps alleviate the symptoms for the little ones.

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  6. Been sucking snot on and off for the last four years now among my 3 daughters (9 months, 2yrs and almost 4yrs). Bulb syringes took much longer to relieve all 3 of my babies of some pretty gnarly reserves of mucous during cold/flu season. It helps to have a good set of lungs. And, as gross as snot suckers may seem, I think that if you can keep your lunch down while changing a loaded diaper, clearing breathing passage with a filtered straw is a piece of cake.

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  7. My wife bought one for our newborn. I initially thought it gross as well and wanted nothing to do with it. But after watching her use it and seeing how much more completely it cleared snot compared to the low capacity blue bulb I converted. Besides the filter, the tube you suck though is really so long that there's no way an infant level of mucus could reach the end. Not to mention that you'd need the lung capacity of an Olympic swimmer to suck it all the way there even if they did. Now the notion of the gas passer....not so sure I could do that.

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  8. I'm sorry, but the snot sucker just seems too nasty. We used the blue bulb on our kids, and it worked just fine. The gas passer plug thing is just weird, what happened to tummy massage and pumping their legs if a baby's gassy. Silly products indeed.

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  9. Bed, bath and beyond? Overpriced and overrated.Stick with Target.

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  10. When my daughter was born in '91, the pediatrician told me she was to sleep on her stomach. Later things changed again. Some parents today read too many of those "how to raise your kids books" psychobabble, rather than using common sense. They've become neurotic.

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  11. I remember the days when lab technicians would transfer blood & other bodily fluids using this technique. It was called "mouth pipetting", and people figured out it was really not a good idea when AIDS came around. See

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/bodyhorrors/2013/03/20/mouth_pipetting/

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  12. Nordstrum, another pretentious place. Try Kohl's or toys/ babies R us.

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    Replies
    1. Nordstrum and other upper-scale stores are good to shop at when they have sales. You can find some great sales at Macy's, for example, and pairing that with a Sunday newspaper coupon can add up to a significant savings.

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  13. Just to get the obligatory Trump reference into these comments, I have to say that Donald probably didn't have his snot sucked adequately and thus has been compensating for that lack since infancy.

    john

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  14. I have a vintage wooden clamp (felt lined) hanger, Nevco Princess is the brand.

    Do they still make these?

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  15. Friedhart, that's a lot of kids in a short space of time. Wifey needs a rest.

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    1. I'm amazed at how easily some people make personal recommendations based on scant knowledge gleaned online from a line or two. It's insulting, and unwelcome, and says much of the person making the recommendation, none of it good.

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  16. That was suppose to be taken in a humorous way. Should have added the smiley. ;) No offense intended.

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    Replies
    1. The Internet is a cold medium. Hard to tell between jesting and insane.

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