Saturday, June 14, 2008

We had an incident. . .

I was trimming Parker's nails last night, and though he didn't yelp at any point, I apparently clipped his thumb. I say apparently because it wasn't until after I finished the second hand and sat with him for a little bit that it bled at all.

And then he really bled.

The bled all over himself, the glider, his clothes. . . . threw a fit in his bath. . . the bled on his new clean clothes, his mother, his bed and Pete, the panda he sleeps with (see above).

It wasn't gushing, we knew he didn't need stitches, we weren't freaking out that much. It was just a mess and it wouldn't stop. We finally put some gauze over it and wrapped with with a band-aid. Which while sleeping he wiggled out of in under an hour.

My mom suggested the gauze and possibly flour (like when you clip a pets nails). We tried the shaving toilet paper trick, didn't work. Anyone know a good way to stop that kind of bleeding?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This happened with Peyton when he was just a few weeks old. I felt horrible, but they have the tiniest blood vessels under those nail beds of theirs. What worked for us was to apply pressure to the tip of the finger to kind of pinch off the blood flow so the bleeding would stop. Once we got the blood to slow down we made a band aide that would fit onto the tip of his finger. I just watched him like a hawk so he didn't try to put that finger in his mouth, for fear he would get it off and choke on it. If it doesn't stop the only thing I would suggest is taking him to the ER so they can cauterize the finger to stop the bleeding. Good luck I have knicked Peyton so many times that I am banned from clipping his nails. :(

~Joe said...

awww poor wittle man, I hate cutting nails ,I do it when savannahs sleeping if I do it at all, I would , I would think if you kept pressure on it for a little while the flow would stop but if its to big then I'd say band aid and like amy said just watch him.

La folle maman said...

Sorry to hear about the nail cutting incident. Hope all is well. I can't say we've experienced a bleeder like that yet. The comments by our family is complete seem like they should work though.

If the incident occurred because of wiggling, you might want to try having one parent occupy him while the other does it or use a specific t.v. show or movie he particularly likes (if you permit t.v. viewing, that is). Monkey and I watch one or two Pixar shorts on my laptop while I cut his nails and it's really helped both of our stress levels during the process.

I'm Not Skippy said...

It's not something to take him to the ER that's for sure. It's not like he was going to bleed to death through a pin hole in his thumb.

The thing is he was holding still this time, he was sitting and playing with a toy using his other hand.

The thing that helped the most was an ice cube. I remembered from my first aid training that ica can slow bleeding. I ran a small stream of hot water on an ice cube which made a little crater just big enough to stick his thumb in. Then I applied it and raised his hand up. It worked, but as soon as I removed the ice it started bleeding again.

Hopefully it won't happen again, but if it does I'm now armed with a few more ideas. Thanks.

caramama said...

That sucks! I clipped part of the Pumpkin's skin once when trying to get her nail, and it bled, but not too bad. I have no good advice for real gushers. Just sympathy.

I felt horrible that I cut her and wouldn't clip her nails for quite a while afterward. Now, we are back in the good but I am SO cautious now. Probably overly cautious...