Keep Crying

Had a growing experience yesterday when my 3 yr old sprayed sunblock on the left directly into both his eyes on a single spray. Will never forget the panic when my husband and i looked up from our conversation to find him screaming and holding his eyes. I thought the worst had happened in that he had cut or hit his eyes on something when Brian grabbed him off the floor and ran for the kitchen sink, and annouced that it was sunblock.

So began the frantic attempts to wash it out off his eyes. Ever try to get water in a screaming child's eyes? First we tried to pour water into them but of course his eyes were squeezed shut and he was trying to rub them. Then we tried to use a water squirt bottle to spray water into his eyes, then we placed him in the bathtub fully clothed and Brian even got in it with him and tried to get him to place his head in the water and open his eyes. Then we muscled him and filled a brand-new infant nose sucker bulb with water and dripped water into his eyes. Then i held him and told him to weirdly enough to "keep crying, so that your tears will wash it out"
What a scare because during which he told us that he couldn't see. Then we got on the phone with Kaiser and the poison control center. What a lesson to learn! Here are some steps that in hindsight are easy enough but in the moment might be valuable to you.
1. Flush out the eyes. Poison control Dr indicated that the best thing was to sit them in the bathrub and pour water on his head, the water and the combination of that likely to make the child cry will help to clean the eyes
2. Kaiser had us try to check to make sure that his pupils looked the same and that he was able to move his eyes to follow our movements/direction.
3. Check for redness in the eyes, even an abrasion could be expected (of the cornea) which would be bloodshot in the eyes for the next 24-48 hrs and to seek Medical advice if that occurred in that timeframe
4. Sunblock per the Poison Control Dr does not cause blindness, the aftermath will very much be discomfort like getting sand of an eyelash in the eyes
5. Could possibly give the child a tiny bit of Tyenol to ease the discomfort. We did not even need to go to this step
6. Always good to know what the Poison Control number is to get reassurance and to give detailed information such as the child's weight and age to adjust the above
7. You never know when your child might do something so unexpected, best to be doubly aware of all potiential dangers.

It took about an hour after the incident for him to be his normal self again, and i'm pretty sure he was rather scared by our reactions as well, he was seeing fine, eating dinner fine and went to bed his normal self a few hours later. What a day.