The ten winners have been notified.
At the end of August, I attended an Allergen Reducing Blogger Roundtable at Apple Seeds NYC that was sponsored by Swiffer. The focus was on educating moms and teachers on how to reduce in-door allergens during the back-to-school season. While there, pediatric and adult allergist Dr. Ehrlich discussed the effects of in-door allergens with several bloggers (Carole, Esti, Isabel and Melissa). You can see the highlights in the clip below:
Besides what was discussed in the video, the three other main points that I took away from the event were the following:
1. It is okay to be “that mother”. For example: if your kid is really allergic to pets, it’s alright to ask the teacher not to allow them to share a cubbie space with kids that have pets in their home. (The allergens are carried on clothes.)
2. Don’t trust grandparents. Not really. It is just really important to emphasize what your kids are allergic to with them so that they will take the allergies seriously. That makes sense. Grandparents and grandparent-type family members sometimes have the tendency to be “soft” in enforcing rules. For instance, my husband had recently taken the boys over to a family member’s house when I was out. Sean didn’t eat his dinner, so my husband told him that he couldn’t have any ice cream. When he looked back, Sean had a cookie in his hand! No, he wasn’t given ice cream, but he STILL received dessert without eating his dinner first…
3. Choose the right pediatrician. If your child does have allergies, be sure that his pediatrician is skilled. Granted, pediatricians are busy. If they are too busy to give your kid the necessary time to diagnose and treat their symptoms, then consider changing pediatricians or going to a pediatric allergist.
At the end of the event, I received a Swiffer 360 Duster from MS&L (Swiffer’s PR agency). Confession: I don’t do the dusting around my home. My husband dusts and mops the floor. (Now that the majority of our floor is carpeted, his “home” duties have been drastically cut.) Anyway, I gave my husband a break in order to test out the duster. It was fun – probably since I don’t have to dust all of the time. Sean even helped with the lower surfaces. The Swiffer got rid of the dust and I like knowing that it removes up to 90% of allergens. We don’t have pets, but we do have dust mites. (You do too – everyone does!) The only dusty areas that I felt the need to go and get an additional cleaner and a rag for were my windowsills. Other than that, it easily cleaned the other surfaces in my home.
The fun part is that Swiffer is giving away 10 of the Swiffer 360 Dusters to Mom in the City readers. To win, simply share something that you (or your kids) are allergic to in the “Comments” section below by October 15th.