What to Do When Your Baby Eats Kitty Litter

I had a rough first day back.  For one thing, Edward was not even crawling when I left for Florida, and now, a month later, he is crawling, pulling up on things, and generally making mischief.  Ruby has nicknamed him "Danger E" because, as she explained, he is always getting into trouble.

We dropped Ruby off at preschool yesterday morning, and then Edward and I came home to hang out, clean, and start packing.  I set him down amongst his toys, which is about when the cat starting puking everywhere.  Forgetting that Edward is 100% mobile now, I turned my back on him for a good minute or two to clean up cat puke, and when I turned back around, he had crawled into the bathroom, pulled himself up onto the cat box, and was eating out of it.

I completely freaked out and scooped him up.  I basically put him right into the sink and started rinsing off his hands and face.  I got the kitty litter out of his mouth, but I was sure he had swallowed some.  As I had no idea what to do in this situation, I turned to the internet for advice.  I found answers ranging from "It's fine to eat kitty litter," to "Take him to the emergency room immediately."  So I did what any stupid and terrified parent would do: I called my mother.

This was not helpful, as my mother has stopped answering my calls for some reason, so I called the pediatrician instead.  They said that they didn't know if it was bad or not, and gave me the number for poison control.  I called poison control, freaking out more by the second, although I must also point out that Edward seemed externally fine.  He didn't choke, he didn't seem sick or upset, and generally seemed pretty pleased with himself.

The pediatrician had told me that poison control would have all the information on different brands of kitty litter, and that once I answered all their questions, they would be able to tell me what to do.  It turned out to be much simpler than that.  Here is an approximate transcript of my conversation with poison control:


Poison Control: "Hello, this is poison control, what stupid thing did you do?" (this was more in the tone than the actual words)

Me: "Hi, my ten month old son just ate some kitty litter, and it wasn't my fault, I was cleaning up puke, and I've been gone for a month, and I didn't know how much he could get around now, and I'm not a bad parent, and please don't call the police or anything, but omigod what should I do?"

PC: "It's fine kitty litter is non-toxic."

Me: "Ok, I have all the brand information on the kitty litter, it's..."

PC: "All kitty litter is non-toxic, he's fine."

Me: "He wasn't choking or anything, and he is acting normally, but I don't know what to watch for..."

PC: "There is no problem, he's fine, thanks for calling."

Me: "I don't think he ate any feces or anything, but how can I really be sure, you know, and..."

PC: "Click."


There was a bit more to it than that, because they took my information down so they could contact me later if needed, but that was kind of the gist of it.  My mother did eventually call me back, and told me to call poison control, so that would have been helpful a few hours earlier.  Anyway, Edward is fine, but we did not get any cleaning or packing done.  And now we have a gate on the bathroom door.