@shakinaglory I don’t use TikTok but I googled this before commenting because we’ve been safely using water beads for years and there was one infant that was the majority of headlines. I’m guessing it was the same one. Unfortunate that they weren’t kept away from an infant.
@aeternusnox IIRC, the older sibling was playing and when cleaning up the mess, one was missed and the baby later found it. It wasn't that the baby was playing with them unsupervised.
@aeternusnox What are you going to do? Send the kid to another home? Every place in a home is a shared space. It’s an honest mistake/accident and people should just not buy the beads.
@shakinaglory These should probably be played with outside if there’s a baby in the home. In our home we have always been very strict about every single one staying contained and if one should drop, all play stops until it is found.
When my own child was a baby I had no issues supervising to make sure no foreign objects that didnt belong in their mouth went in their mouth. Supervision.
@aeternusnox Just want to jump in and say the inflated form in a toy doesn't seem to be fully inflated. We had a broken squeeze ball that I captured in a zip lock bag and accidentally wound up by the sink. The beads swelled up almost twice more. I suppose it can very depending on the toy. I am just sharing this example to not make assumption. It's not like cooked rice.
@aeternusnox Sorry you’re getting so downvoted. It’s like the plastic bag thing with previous generation of parents. If you compare total number of suffocations in US per year from plastic bags (adult and pediatric) it’s like 25 to lightning strikes it is 20. The amount of awareness about this is really high though. I don’t think it hurts to raise awareness and agree. Read the boxes and give toys to age appropriate children. Supervise infants at all times. Practice basic precautions.
I wonder what the stats on these beads are though?
@faithservant I looked this up before commenting because I have no emotional attachment to these things. If they’re really a death trap, I’ll ban them for life. I found a lot of reporting on the same handful of stories. I’m not into whataboutism but I suppose a lot of the people raising the alarm would “but car accidents” other things that they feel safe with. Ultimately, it did make me think harder about having them in my house.
@joshlynn888 My oldest kid stuck orbeez in his ear and had to have them removed. So not only do kids eat them, they try to stick them up their nose or in their ears. They are banned from my house along with a lot of other toys.
@joshlynn888 I wish they would remove all water beads toys from the market. Had to spend my weekend in the ER a few weeks ago because my daughter found some in a goodie bag from a party and she ate them thinking they were sprinkles. One of the scariest days of my life.
@joshlynn888 I bought one of these rhino looking dude sets for my 4 year old not knowing it had orbeez in it (just thought it was squishy.) he broke it within a day and had goo everywhere. We immediately tossed it and the one that came with it. I interrogated him for like 20 minutes to ensure he didn’t eaten any. I was still paranoid for the next few days hoping he had it put it in his mouth. Super scary that the packaging isn’t clear.
