Calling Poison Control

We had a ‘first’ this week, one I had been hoping to avoid. The first call to poison control. Which, by the way, the number for is 1-800-222-1222. I recommend all of you with small children to either put that in your contact list or write it near the phone.

I was working on some banking in the office and Jack was out playing in the kitchen. Suddenly I hear the clatter of something spilling. Whatever it was sounded small and hard. I went to check and he is standing on a chair in the kitchen with his vitamins (Target’s Up & Up Children’s Chewable Multivitamins with iron)  poured out on the counter AND he’s got some in his mouth and a fistful in his hand moving in the same direction.

Did I mention that the lid of the jar is supposedly child proof?

Needless, to say I went into panic mode. He’s only supposed to get half a tablet a day and here he is with 3 or 4 in his mouth already! I yelled, “Jack, NO” and must have had the ‘mommy panic’ tone just right because he immediately burst into tears. I grabbed him and started popping pills out of him mouth. Then I’m trying to calm him down while picking up pills.

The jar was a 60 count jar and there were 37 left. He and Kevin take their vitamins together most every day (I estimated 4 out of 7 days each week) and the jar has been open at least 2 weeks. At the most, if any, he ate maybe 4 or 5 tablets. Still, that is around 8 times more than he’d supposed to have daily and since his pills have iron in then (a common culprit for accidental poisonings in children) I figured I’d better call potion control.

The call at the call center was very nice. After giving her Jack’s age and weight along with the amount of iron and Vitamin A per tablet off the back of the jar she ran the math and said he’d most likely be fine. He’d have to eat around 100 of his vitamins to be at risk for Vitamin A poisoning and unless he’s sensitive to it he did eat enough to be majorly concerned about iron poisoning. On the safe said she said to give him some milk and food as that many vitamins can upset a small stomach if its empty. She also warned that our vitamins have sorbitol as an inactive ingredient and that can cause diarrhea…joy! She said she’d call back in an hour to see he’d shown any signs of iron poisoning (nausea, upset stomach, diarrhea, and vomiting) and if he hadn’t he was most likely okay.

In the end he was fine. He was he usual crazy self all evening. I’m starting to think I caught him with his first mouthful and he didn’t eat any at all. Especially since he’s been completely normal in the poo department today. Still, we went ahead and passed on vitamins this morning.