Warm-Wipe Parenting

NRO: Bad Habits Start At The Baby Megastore

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Jay Gress.

---

With both bewilderment and awe, I was initiated into the high-glitter world of baby products one recent weekend. I thought that I was prepared. Though my ego would like to report otherwise, I was wrong.

While planning our wedding, my now-wife and I were exposed to the deceptive machinations of the "wedding-industrial complex," whos raison d'etre is to shame you into purchasing overpriced and superfluous goods and services so that your wedding guests will be impressed. Despite having more temptations than the Wonka-vator, we managed to resist spending money that we didn't have on services that we would little remember. I've learned that the baby-product world offers similar challenges.

Fortunately, my expectant wife shares my penchant for minimalism. We're not ones to clutter our home with trinkets and unnecessary "stuff," but on this weekend we would be registering for baby showers, so a moment of weakness might lead to regrettable glassy-eyed decisions. Armed with the frugal confidence we'd acquired from the wedding experience, though, I felt prepared to parry the inevitable salvos that would be launched against my more impulsive side.

Now, one should know that unlike the wedding industry, where the consumer deliberately hop-scotches from the tailor to the photographer to the baker to the church to the caterer, the baby world is presented to the consumer largely under one roof, where everything is within reach and begging for attention.

Though there are no signs in these baby megastores to tell you where to begin or which way to go, the clever store designers eerily control your unwitting movement through the aisles. Analogous to the Death Star's tractor-beam, I was being sucked into a veritable Champs-Elysees of elaborate displays and well-packaged baby products — except Ben Kenobi wasn't there to tell me to "turn the ship around."

Perusing like I had a foot caught in one of those tracked contraptions that moves cars through carwashes, I was exposed to the tools that are used in the boiler rooms of parenthood: bedding, bottles, strollers, diaper bags, diaper trash cans, etc — many of which I had seen and even used before with nieces and nephews, but never contemplated purchasing myself.

To my wife's credit, her weeks of research and proverbial tire-kicking had softened the blow. She knew which products would be out of the question and had successfully narrowed to a palatable minimum the range of decisions that I would have to make. For her efforts, I was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself after the first couple of hours (yes, hours).

One product, however, proved to be just too much for me. Though my wife insisted on its necessity, I could not seem to justify the immediate expense or the lasting consequences of owning what is known as a "wipe warmer." This silly apparatus claims to "take the jolt out" of wiping a baby's undercarriage by warming the moist "baby wipes" to a more balmy temperature. As if "room temperature" is somehow abusively cold. This is one of those shame products that you're supposed to buy so that you don't raise the ire of visitors to your baby nursery. ("Did you hear? The Gresses are not warming their baby wipes! Unconscionable! Don't they know that their baby could get Sudden Sphincter Frostnip?")

Before moving to Washington, D.C., I worked as a mountain guide in the Rocky and Cascade mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest, leading winter mountaineering and backcountry skiing excursions. On extended trips, toilet paper often consisted of carefully shaped snowballs — so I'm not at all sympathetic to the idea that my kids cannot stand a mildly cool wipe of the bum that lasts about two thirds of a second.

What most concerns me about the wipe warmer is the attitude it could engender, and that I'll one day wake up to realize that I have raised exceedingly effete and spoiled children who cower from any "jolt" or discomfort. I fear that they will recoil from worthy pursuits that involve suffering, like studying and work, and worry how they will react to the compulsory sufferings of life. I do not know whether our kids will take up pursuits such as mountaineering like their father, or marathon running like their mother — two pursuits which can stockpile suffering, but can also develop degrees of character and confidence not found in, say, videogames. But I'd at least like them to be comfortable with austerity and quiet in the face of adversity. In short, the wipe warmer represents an affront to everything that I want my kids to be.

Hopefully they'll develop a sense of determination that is illustrated in a modest act that I witnessed in a back corner of Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church in Sun Valley, Idaho, some years back: An elderly man, seemingly an octogenarian, slowly ambled his way towards a pew, cane in hand to mitigate his debilitating limp. Selecting one of the pews closest to the church entrance, he braced himself with one hand on the pew, the other on his cane, as he knelt down to genuflect, dropping his knee all the way to the floor and tenuously making the sign of the cross. Thereafter, his whole body tremored as he fought Newton with all four limbs to regain his stance, which he did after what seemed an eternity to the observer. He then shuffled into the pew and sat down, blending in with the rest of the parishioners from my vantage.

The elder man's anguished act of piety burned itself into my memory. Given his condition, he could be forgiven for not genuflecting at all. Had they existed at the time, I'm quite certain his parents would not have owned a wipe warmer when they were raising him.

As a young priest once asked me: Should one sin to avoid suffering, or suffer to avoid sinning? Admittedly, the wipe warmer is morally neutral, but the mindset of deflecting every possible discomfort, regardless of how trivial, isn't necessarily. I only hope that I can, for their sake and that of the civilization they'll inherit, shield my children from being overly shielded.


Jay Gress is an expectant father and a graduate student of statecraft and national security at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

[susanrntx]

As a nurse who cares for a large incontinent geriatric population in the hospital, I can attest that adult wipes are freezing cold. The elderly complain bitterly about cold wipes and I try to warm them with water, we also have bath packs that are microwaveable, taking care to only warm briefly to prevent burns. Granted a baby will forget the discomfort, and a commercial wipe warmer isn't neccessary, but if we can make our loved ones and those in our care feel better, why not?

[blazercoach1]

To the comment written below: After you grant that a baby will forget and that the wipe warmer isn't necessary......does your comment have anything to do with the article? Your experience is NOT what Gress is writing about. The elderly are not babies! They come (as do all of us) with a legacy of needs...some real, some imagined. Babies needs are ALL real.

As a parent of three...I've never seen my kids flinch or wince or try to roll away after receiving a room tempertature wipe.

[scottiemac52]

Uh, you DO realize that will now be gifted with more wipe warmers than you have outlets in which to plug them, right?

Heck, you can do away with moist wipes entirely; stick with bath tissue, damp washcloths (buy 'em by the gross, no pun intended), or grab a handful of leaves - they've got the additional benefit of being biodegradable!

[ctews4ep]

I have two children. The first had no wipe warmer, and I found that a "room temperature" wipe to a baby that just came out of a 98 degree safe haven is VERY cold. My daughter would shriek as a newborn to the touch of a wipe and in the middle of the night, when you're up for the fourth time, it's even more nerve-racking. My second daughter is 5 months old, and I was given a wipe-warmer as a baby gift. I've found it to take a huge stress off of diaper changing. The baby was hardly phased by diaper changing and I now believe every new parent should invest in one if possible. It's like writing a book review before you've even read the book! Try changing with and then without. You'll see what I mean. True, they won't remember either way, but it's a gift to the parents as much as the baby.

[ctews4ep]

I have two children. The first had no wipe warmer, and I found that a "room temperature" wipe to a baby that just came out of a 98 degree safe haven is VERY cold. My daughter would shriek as a newborn to the touch of a wipe and in the middle of the night, when you're up for the fourth time, it's even more nerve-racking. My second daughter is 5 months old, and I was given a wipe-warmer as a baby gift. I've found it to take a huge stress off of diaper changing. The baby was hardly phased by diaper changing and I now believe every new parent should invest in one if possible. It's like writing a book review before you've even read the book! Try changing with and then without. You'll see what I mean. True, they won't remember either way, but it's a gift to the parents as much as the baby.

[debteach1]

As the mother of triplets who were born 15 weeks premature and spent the first 4 1/2 months fighting for their lives I had no reservations about purchasing 3 wipe warmers to put in every room to ensure that they were comfortable while having their tiny bottoms changed. However, they do not shreek and shrill when we are out in public and we have to use "room temperature" wipes. Which begs the question... do they even care? Probably not but it makes me feel better to wipe them with a warm wipe whenever possible. I am strict with them in the areas of life that are really important and relevant to shaping the type of character that I want to build up in them. I do not feel that having the luxury of a wipe warmer is going to spoil them. This is obviously your first child as you will soon learn that you will use the wipes in the wipe warmer to wipe your childs face, hands, and other body parts that s/he has spit up on as well as wiping it off yourself. You can always donate your excess wipe warmers to the geriatric department of the hospital as the nurse who posted before me could really use them. I found it hard to stay focused on the "wipe warmer" issue while navigating through this article as you have must have used a thesaurus to write this article. I have three college degrees including a dual Master's Degree and I must say that your word selection for this article has serious taken the focus away from the topic at hand.

[twilbury]

A complete waste of money. Why even consider such a product? I never noticed any child I've cared for recoiling from a room temperature wipe.

[Darcyyc]

My, my, what lofty things we have to ponder these days. Nature gave me a built-in wipe warmer. It's called a hand a few seconds. Happy wiping!

[melissacar66]

A cold wipe to a newborn boy's bum tends to make him pee everywhere. Using a wipe warmer was a great mess saver.

[erinbc]

As a dad-to-be, I encourage you to take a serious leap into learning about babies & children and their development; then your parenting will be guided by understanding and wisdom as opposed to personal opinion, myth, or lack of knowledge.

To state the obvious, babies are not toddlers, young children, or adults. Character traits and worthy pursuits like healthy studying and work habits develop over years of parenting - not through providing or not providing a physical comfort to an infant. The life of a baby is sensory-driven, and the infant's brain is in heightened growth in the first year. Our job as parents is to physically and emotionally care for a baby's needs. You cannot "spoil" a child or affect degrees of character and confidence by warming a baby wipe. Period.

What you CAN do is build your child's understanding that his/her environment is safe, loving, and able to be trusted. Aside from the wonderful comment by a reader that at 4AM, if a warmed wipe helps a baby and mom sleep - more power to it! - know that some children are sensory-sensitive. Simple changes in the environment calm the child. Yes, even a warm baby wipe will make a difference.

If the wipe warmer represents "an affront to everything that I want my kids to be," then I'm concerned. I encourage you to learn more about babies. You might change a few of your thoughts.

Erin Brown Conroy, parenting author, child development expert, & Mom of 13

[ecuadoriana]

I must agree with scottiemac. As it is, baby wipes are a chemical covered, plastic encased affront to the environment. To warm them up first in a special "wipe warmer" is bordering on insane.

My butt wasn't wiped with a "baby wipe" back in 1960, neither were my 4 subsequent brothers & sisters, nor my daughter or her cousins. I am fairly certain that my parents, grandparents, & various other elder relatives were not slapped down with a chemical-soaked, moist towette either. None of us are in therapy for having our backsides wiped with a wet dish towel, spare diaper, napkin, washrag, mom's spit on a hanky, or whatever was handy at the moment. (None of us wore disposable diapers either, but that's a whole other topic.)

I believe the writer of this article was making a case against those parents who start the spoiling process while in vitro. First it was the stupid anti-bacterial soaps (is it any wonder that so many kids are allergic to their own breath now from lack of natural immunities??!!). Now we'll wipe off those germs with anti-bacterial, pre-warmed, chemical-soaked butt wipes. Next thing you know, the kid will be "allergic" to "regular" toilet paper & you'll see those over-protective, compulsive-obsessive parents scrambling to buy $10 per roll, special non-allergen toilet paper for their kids!!!!