Baby wipes as cold compresses

As a parent you get pretty resourceful out of necessity - i.e., you're away from home with the baby and you have an accident - and start digging away in the diaper bag to see what remedy you can come up with. That's how I discovered that baby wipes can also be used as cold compresses. They're wet and cold, and can be turned over repeatedly, plus there's a big supply of them in case you need them.

Case in point - awhile back Astrid and I were in the children's toy section of a store. Astrid did not want to sit in the cart, and preferred to walk next to me (holding onto the cart or holding my hand). But then something caught her eye at the end of the aisle and she would not follow me no matter how many times I called her name. When she darted out into the aisle, she went head first into another shopping cart being pushed by another shopper who didn't see her in time. Luckily the cart was being pushed very slowly at the time and the man felt awful about it. (He kept apologizing and asking if she was okay.) Astrid picked herself off the floor and came running to me and then started crying. I could already see a red welt forming on her forehead.

(On a side note: Since Astrid wasn't seriously injured, I was in a way glad that it had happened since it served a purpose. It taught her the valuable lesson of staying close to Mommy, and more importantly listening to Mommy.)

So I whipped out the cold baby wipes and held them up to her forehead, turning them over as needed, and giving her new ones after each one got warm. And it worked! It brought the swelling down and afterwards there was no bump. And it had the added benefit of soothing Astrid. I'm sure if I would have left it as is there would have been a pretty big bump on her head.

I've used baby wipes for this purpose many times since, even on myself. Once when I was playing with Astrid, I leaned in to tickle and say something silly to her while she was on the swing, and hit my lip on the hard metal piece on the side. I felt my lip starting to swell so I kept some baby wipes on it for about 10 minutes (which felt great too and kept the throbbing sensation away) and afterwards there was no fat lip.

Most recently, today I used them again. Astrid wanted to take off her zip up pullover herself. I didn't think much of it until she said her face hurt. Face hurt? Huh? Lemme see your face. She had two red scratches on either side of her face from where the zipper had razed over her face. I used baby wipes and within minutes the red scrapes and swelling went away.

The key is to use the baby wipes right away. The sooner the better to cool the area and get the swelling down.

Now even Astrid will ask for the baby wipes to hold onto a boo boo and after a few seconds she'll say, "I'm okay now."