My wife and I are thinking of starting a family, however I have a fear/loathing of all things pukey and I know that parenthood is one pukey event after another.
First we have morning sickness, then baby-puke (which isn’t that terrible from what I hear), then moving on to toddler and regular children related illness and general power-puking.
I don’t think I can handle that.
Can anyone ease my fears and tell me that I won’t mind it as much as I think I will? I would really like to hear from “puke-phobic” parents and how you dealt with it, but any help/comments (other than “get a cat instead”) would be appreciated.
Oh, and save your “Shuddering Tales of Vomit” for this thread please. I want to be able to read any replies
Don’t know about the other thread, but if you are going to be a parent, you’d better get pretty used to dealing with piss, crap, and puke. Little kids don’t instinctively understand the desirability of puking in a toilet or a bucket. As a reult, they just projectile vomit wherever they happen to be at the time the need arises. One of the things that made me realize I was really a parent was when I was trying to get my kid to puke into my hands, instead of all over the carpet so it would be easier to clean up.
Our experience is that it gets easier as the kid gets older - say 3 or so, because they have leaned that they should try to make it to the garbage or the toilet, and tey ask for a bucket to take to bed if they feel queasy. Moreover, at that time they develop some control over such functions. You can’t really get angry with a little kid when they make a mess of their bed in the middle of the night. You just have to deal with it.
Just get yourself some antibacterial soap and get used to washing your hands alot and breathing through your mouth.
Right now you may find it difficult to believe that you would have no problem discussing various aspects of your kid’s shit over the dinner table. But it becomes a pretty big part of your life, and something you just deal with.
As far as the morning sickness is concerned, my wife never really puked, but said she always felt like she was about to, which sounded even worse if possible. I’ve heard several women speak of regular puking as a relatively manageable thing. My sister described driving to work, pulling over to the side of the road, opening the door and puking, and continuing to work. Further convinced me that it is a good thing women have babies, because if it were up to men, the species would have died out long ago.
Believe me, dealing with puke, sit, and piss is one of the easier things about being a parent.
The other great thing about baby puke is that is no warning whatsoever. It’s happened to me so many times I’ve lost count. I’ll be sitting there holding my daughter, thinking how she is the cutest thing alive, then … BLECH … The warm jet of baby puke covers everything in sight. It’s almost magical how something so small can hold so much puke.
You get used to it. And baby puke doesn’t smell nearly as bad as adult puke, so that’s a plus.
Get cats first. You’ll get soooo used to cleaning up puke that pretty soon you’ll be able to do it while eating. One of my cats needs heart pills twice a day, so when she throws up, I have to PICK THROUGH THE PUKE to see if she kept it down.
Slightly off-topic, but not really . . . When my sister and I were kids, we had a “throw-up bowl,” which our mother set aside for just that purpose. It was a distinctive white porcelain fluted bowl. Years later, my sister and I were having dinner at a friend’s, when the chili was served: in a distinctive white porcelain fluted bowl! She and I looked at the bowl full of chili, looked at each other, and fell out of our chairs laughing. Needless to say, neither of us was able to touch the chili.
Slightly off topic, but Eve’s post rememinded me of the time I went into a diner that advertised the special “Cold Chili.”
I sat down at the counter and asked for a bowl, but the waitress told me the guy next to me had been served the last bowl. Well, I ordered a coffee while i made up my mind, and noticed that the guy next to me asked for his check without having touched the full bowl of chili. I asked if he would mind if I tried it, and he said “sure” and passed the bowl over.
Man, it was some good chili, and I really went at it. I had eaten about half of it when I noticed that at the bottom of the bowl there was a huge dead rat. I was so disgusted that I instantly puked what I had just eaten back into the bowl.
Whereupon my neighbor observed that he had not gotten much further than that himself!
I was somewhat puke-phobic before kids, but while it still turns my stomach to hear someone else puking, I can clean up my kids’ baby/kid puke (provided they hadn’t eaten anything truly revolting) without gagging.
Puke, like changing nasty diapers, seems to be something that a lot of people worry about handling before they have kids, but once they have kids, they manage. So will you.
I’ll tell you what was awful, though – when our now -deceased dog ate her own poo, then yakked it up. OMFG. That was the WORST. Part of the reason I’ve delayed getting another dog, though my kids would love one – I do NOT want to go through that again!
Having two children, I can honestly say that it will not faze you. It all washes off.
Baby spit up (it’s not really vomit) doesn’t smell that bad. If you’re nursing the poop doesn’t smell bad either…
This precious angel is your child, and you will love it unconditionally, even if it poops on your ankle (like my son did to Mr. Ivylass) or manages to throw up on the floor of your brand new house (Thank God we have vinyl tile and not carpeting)
I guess I have to say what bothered me was the uncontrollable crying. They were fed, dry, and burped and I couldn’t get them to stop crying! What was I doing wrong? (sniff sniff)
(ivylass, so glad her children are 9 and 12 now…a whole NEW set of problems to look forward to…)
Not everyone becomes ‘immune’, but every parent learns to deal with it. Poor Jenn has a really tough time with messy events, but even she has learned to deal with the problem (usually by calling for me ) when she needs to. It’s a learned response (or nonresponse, as the case may be).
You get used to it. Before parenthood, there was nothing worse, as far as I was concerned, than puke. I almost never did it myself and was completely grossed out by the thought of it. Now I am unfazed by my kid’s puke/poop/whatever.
The great thing about babies is how they ease you into the horribleness. Nursing poop doesn’t smell bad, and the first spit-ups and larger pukes are just milk, so you don’t get so upset. You get to ease gradually into smellier, more foody substances, until even the barf-every-15-minutes nights and the most nuclear diapers just provide joke-fodder. Another plus is that you get used to your own baby’s smell, so his diapers don’t smell as bad to you as another kid’s do.
I can’t believe the things I can touch without bliking an eye! I used to be squirmish and wondered how my mother ever did it. Now I know. You just do it. You do it for the kid.
Another parent checking in. I agree with everyone who has said that it ain’t no biggie. I do remember some times, though, when changing a diaper, I thought, “What the hell have we been feeding him, habanero lasagna?”
I have to admit that my biggest worry wasn’t cleaning him up, it was dropping him when I was bathing him. Little suckers are all slippery, and baths make them happy and wiggly.
Speaking of puke, one of my cats (the non rockin’ cat) just puked all over my raincoat last night. I’d left it out since she seemed comfortable sleeping on it - I won’t make that mistake again.
This morning I found myself cleaning cat puke off my raincoat before I could go to work. Ew…
On the bright side, and I speak as a sympathetic puker, cat horking doesn’t sound nearly as bad as a human praying to the porcelain god.
Yeh, when they just drink milk, their ‘emmanations’ don’t smell too yuck at all (unless you’re really averse to sour milk). It’s when they start eating what YOU do that they start to be particularly objectionable, and by then you love them, so nothing is too much trouble.
The other thing is morning sickness. With none of my four pregnancies did I feel one twinge of nausea…in fact I felt more healthy and vigorous than I did at any other time of my life (at least until after I got too cumbersome to be full of vim and vigour!)
So don’t take it as rote that you will be spewing every morning/lunchtime/afternoon for 3 or so months. It aint necessarily true.
While not a parent, I used to have the same aversion to puke. In fact, I still do. The smell doesn’t really bother me, I can shut that out, but the noise and sight of it, is what does me in.
You will be able to cope with it. If you truly want to have children, puke is the least of your worries. When you love someone, as I’m sure you love your wife and will love your child, it just isn’t an issue.
My DH has been incredibly sick twice, puking everywhere. Once when we were 18 and just started living together, and once when we were 22. It came upon him unexpectedly, and after getting him into the bathroom, I looked around at the mess (and he’s a champion projectile vomiter) and realised that he was too sick to clean it up, he needed my help and for me to get him as clean as possible, and the house to not smell like puke, which would encourage him to keep up the puking effort. That’s all it took. No it wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as anybody else’s puke would’ve been. Someone I loved with all my heart needed me to do it for him, and that’s all there was to it.
Ask yourself if you’d be able to clean up your wife’s puke if she was incredibly sick, and needed your help. If the answer is yes, don’t worry about all the kid-related puking. It’s a labour of love.
) when she needs to. It’s a learned response (or nonresponse, as the case may be).