Ever heard of Nosefrida?  No?  Well, let me put this as delicately as possible.  Nosefrida is a snot sucker powered by mom.  It is also the greatest invention for babies that won’t break your bank (15.00) and will save you a whole lot of heart ache.

Now is the season for colds.  I know this because both of my kids are getting over them and so am I.  I don’t know what is worse, a sick and whining toddler who is constantly wiping snot over his face with his hand, or a helpless baby who needs you to manually remove snot from their nose for them to breathe.

Bulb syringes are the devil.  They are thin and pokey, using repeatedly can cause nose bleeds and irritation for the baby, and they aren’t terribly effective. I always had to repeat the suction over and over with little result.

I got my Nosefrida over a year ago.  The timing wasn’t great, my first son was pretty wriggly at the time.  No matter what form of nose suction I used, it required two hands.  He thrashed and screamed.  But since it was a two handed job no matter what, I always chose the Nosefrida.

With a non mobile baby the Nosefrida is even more amazing.  My poor Everett was so congested a few nights ago he could hardly breathe.  I brought out ol’ faithful and starting sucking out boogies.  You know it is good when you hear this wet suction sound and see the snot in the tube.

I could hear the snot getting pulled from the deeper nasal cavity, truly relieving him of his congestion.  Bulbs can never get this deep, and you wouldn’t want to because that would be irritating to the baby’s nose.

How does the Nosefrida work?

There are 4 pieces.  A tapered plastic tube with a small hole opening at the tip, a cap attached to a long tube, a red mouthpiece, and a tiny foam cylinder filter which will prevent any snot from entering the tube.

The tapered tube is meant to create a vacuum in the baby’s nostril. Only a tiny portion is truly inside their nose, but it is not going to irritate them at all.

Once you have this inside your nostril, you are going to put the red mouthpiece in and suck.  I don’t want to sound gross, but you really need to suck.  Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t hearing something.  This does take some practice.  Just keep in mind you need a ton of lung power.

Once you hear that wet “squishy” vacuum noise you know you are doing it.  You will start to see a lot of mucous enter the tube.  Don’t worry, even if you have super lungs and you manage to suck the mucous all the way up the tube, there is that tiny sponge filter which will keep it out of the tube and out of your mouth.

If you have a weak stomach you might gag at the sight of the snot.  My husband did.  It doesn’t bother me in the least.

My advice if you have one or plan to buy one is: rinse the tube right away. I am awful about this because the most use my Nosefrida gets is in the middle of the night when my kid is congested the most.  But letting the snot dry is a bad idea, trust me.

My other advice is: get over the gross factor.  This product is so effective you will wonder how you lived without it.  Sick kids are the worst.  Babies can’t blow their noses.  Babies need to breathe without obstructions to nurse and sleep comfortably.

I promise you, this is an investment worth making.  If your baby is in the mobile phase it is definitely more of a challenge if they put up a fight.  Still, getting them cleaned out before bed is worth the trouble.  Going from hearing the crackled, congested nose, to clear breathing, is worth all the snot sucking in the world.

Right now the Nosefrida is on sale on Amazon.com (affiliate link) with free shipping!

Nosefrida The Snotsucker Nasal Aspirator

I received a Nosefrida as swag at a conference over a year ago, but I would have written this review had I paid for it too!  I was not compensated for my review.

A tipster sent me an email with this quote:

Did you know that one of the causes of colds in babies is the wetness that cloth diapers cannot absorb?  With Pampers disposable diapers, your baby can stay dry all night and is less likely to get a cold than he would with cloth diapers.

That’s because Pampers diapers absorb and lock away 100 times more wetness than cloth diapers do.

Keeping skin in its perfect, natural state.

This was allegedly excerpted verbatim from an online survery about Pampers on an unnamed survey site.

There are so many things wrong with this statement. I will dissect it.
“…one of the causes of colds in babies is the wetness that cloth diapers cannot absorb…”
Colds are caused by GERMS. Babies catch germs from their environment.
“cannot abosorb”
This is implying that the cloth diapers are not even taking wetness in. What I’m sure they meant to say is that disposable diapers have a stay dry layer. What, what was that? This just in: SO DO MANY VARIETIES OF CLOTH DIAPERS! Suedecloth and microfleece wick moisture away from baby’s skin. While cloth diapers are only as good as the materials used to make them, those materials are predominately found in nature and not a chemistry lab; they are plenty aborbent enough that the baby will not be laying in a pool of urine come morning time.
“…your baby can stay dry all night and is less likely to get a cold than he would with cloth diapers.”
Your baby can also stay dry all night long in cloth diapers. I will admit that night time cloth diapering can be a challenge for many families, but this doesn’t mean that there is no way to acheive success. I don’t even use cloth diapers with stay dry liners at night. I have used prefolds and fitteds, both of which usually leave wetness against the baby. And yes, that diaper stays on him for 10-12 hours. My baby has not gotten a cold yet this season, and I am sure the cold he got last year was not a cloth diaper related one. I am almost positive, since that time last year we were using disposable diapers for some of our night time diapering needs while I battled repelling issues with my pocket diapers.

I also want to note that our babies sleep indoors where it is warm.  Do your babies sleep in tents outside?  My baby sleeps in a comfortably heated bedroom with fleece pajamas.  The temperature outside may get well below freezing but he is dry, he is comfortable, he is leak free, and most importantly, he has never caught a “cloth diaper cold.” Edited to add:It was brought to my attention that it is just not possible to get a cold from being wet and in freezing temperatures. This is surely uncomfortable, but even if that were true that is a far cry from a wet cloth diaper overnight in a warm room.

Methinks Pampers is threatened by the rise of the “real” diaper.  What do you think?  If you are upset by this new marketing ploy there are many ways to reach Pampers.

***I did not personally see this quote on the webpage and cannot verify it as true.  However the tipster has no reason to falsify this information and believe it to be true.

By Phone:

(1-800-PAMPERS (726-7377)

By Written mail:

Attn: Pampers
The Procter & Gamble Company
PO Box 599
Cincinnati OH 45202

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Pampersvillage

And email:

Pampers Customer Service Form

Edited to Add Thanks to the commenter Cloth Diapers for Us made I decided to track down the Nigerian article about cloth diapers. This made the rounds of twitter a while back. Basically, Pampers had a promotional tour to debut a new 3- Way Fit disposable. The claim made was that “Studies by child psychology experts he said shows that, ‘As babies embrace new movement and play ideas, their creativity increases through body movements and expression’”

How does this relate to cloth diapers? “Pampers is endorsed by the Pediatrics Association of Nigeria and recent studies with global academic experts show that Pampers delivers superior sleep quality over cloth diapers, resulting in babies’ improved learning and social interaction.”

Another absurd cloth diaper claim. Pampers has claimed that cloth diapers contribute to babies catching colds, and that children in cloth diapers develop at a slower rate (or fail to thrive) than children in disposable diapers. My son can get around quite well in his diapers, and he is a social butterfly. I guess all of our cloth diapered babies should just be sent to the “special school” because they have been severely impaired by cloth diapers. PSHAW.
You can read the entire article here: Vanguard: P&G Introduces Pampers 3 Way Fit Diapers.