This disgusting hack saved my toddler an ER trip — every parent should know it
There’s no one more curious than a toddler — and one mom is sharing a hack that she swears every parent needs to know to avoid urgent-care trips.
Mom of one Amanda Schwartz, who describes herself as a “scrunchy mom” — a middle ground between a “crunchy” mom and “silky” mom, shared her simple trick after her toddler got some food stuck up her nose.
“This mom hack saved me and my toddler a trip to urgent care last week,” she said in the TikTok video, which has been viewed 529,000 times as of Friday morning. “And if you have not heard this, you need to listen.”
After realizing her little girl had something lodged in her nostril — noting her child was acting “weird” — the mom quickly searched online for a remedy for the increasingly panicked situation.
“I grab a flashlight, look up her nose, and there is something in there from her pizza,” Schwartz explained.
The mom grabbed some tweezers and laid her toddler down, before having second thoughts.
“I thought, ‘Hmmm, I better not do this,’ ” she admitted. ” ‘I don’t want to shove it further up her nose because I don’t know how big this is.’ ”
Schwartz explained she used one of her fingers to block the nostril that didn’t have food in it, and then blew into her daughter’s mouth — saying the food came straight out.
“The air is going to go up and shoot the food, or the pebble, or whatever it is, out of the nostril that it’s stuck in,” she explained.
“It took two tries because it partially came out the first time, and I couldn’t quite grab it, then it shot out the second time,” she recalled. “It was a big hunk of cheese.”
The mom couldn’t believe how well the trick worked — saying she had to use it again two days later when her daughter shoved bread up her nose.
“It was disgusting,” she said. “But it worked so well.”
Hundreds of people commented on on the video, many saying they’ve tried it themselves.
“I suggested this to our neighbor a couple summers ago while she was in a panic. It worked,” one user wrote. “It did take 3 people to hold the kids down though.”
“[That’s] the Mother’s Kiss!!” shared another. “I run a day home and have had to use this a few times over the last 16 years — lol, worked every time!”
Fellow TikTok content creator the Pediatric Pals — run by Dr. Sami and Dr. Ana — also chimed in saying it’s worth trying before going to the emergency room.
“Pretty common technique,” they explained in a comment. “It’s actually called ‘mother’s kiss.’ It is worth a try before going to the doctor /ER.”