Strollerderby

i totally agree! my daughter eats food off the floor allll the time, she actually throws it all on the floor and then eats it when she gets to it. which if i miss a piece while sweeping, could be a few days later. she likes to share her toys with the dogs, she doesnt actually use a binky anymore but she has one in her toybox, and she took it out the other day and gave it to my mom's dog to lick. then shoved it in her own mouth. she has to give the dogs kisses before she leaves, and does share food with them. she also sometimes takes their food. (this is at my mom's house where they dont really baby proof anything, i swear i dont feed her dog food). but my theory is that kids should do stuff like that, there is nothing wrong with your house being clean, obviously. but when you bleach and sterilize every little thing, it doesnt give their immune system a chance to build itself up.

So the saying "a little dirt never hurt anyone" should really be "a little dirt helps everyone"

Emphasis on the "little" part though... when she goes to the playground and starts eating the sand, i draw the line.

five second? pffft, as long as theres not crap all over it, have at it! gotta build up those immunities!

Ahhh, yes. Reminds me of when we had a "post placement" visit from the social worker when we were in the process of adopting our daughter. Her paci dropped to the floor and got a bit of fuzz on it from the carpet. Not missing a beat I snatched it, sucked off the fuzz real quick, and popped it back in her mouth. The social worker said "I did NOT see that" and I said "Oh, well then watch closely" and repeated.

It's a wonder we were cleared to parent her. She's 21 now, and will graduate college this May. Guess it didn't hurt her too much.

I am not a germophobe, but we have two dogs. As long as the food doesn't have dog hair all over it, it's fair game!

We call the cheerios that carpet our home "Floorios."  Every 10 month old knows they taste better from the floor.

As far as the rest of us, if someone wants to eat something off the floor, that's totally up to them.

I always thought it was a 10 second rule. That rule only has a couple of exceptions: If food falls under the stove or refridgerator, it is a 1 second rule and the bathroom floor has 0 seconds.

I remember when my kids were toddlers and they would have some food in their mouth and I was like, Oh crap, where did that come from?? I think they actually had a secret Cheerio stash somewhere in their room.

I always heard that kids that were exposed to dirt had better immunities. I really didn't ever care if it was true or not. It sounded good and gave me some grace as a parent.

We don't use the three-second rule, we use the wet/dry food rule.  If it's a piece of fruit or cheese (wet) it gets thrown away as soon as it hits the floor.  If it's a cracker/Cheerio/etc., it's still good days later.  I figure as long as my daughter is still crawling all over the floor using her hands and then sticking her hands in her mouth, she's getting whatever germs she would be anyway from a cracker that had been on that selfsame floor.  Wet food accumulates lint, though, which grosses me out.