Anyone suggest a food-safe, tough clear tape for outside of syringes?

[Will's Mom]

In preparation for baby season, I am looking for a food-safe, tough(lasts through water, formula,washing) clear tape to put on outside of our feeding syringes, to make the measurements last. There are tough clear waterproof tapes out there, ie., gorilla tapes, but I wonder about chemicals in the tape leaching into the formula. Same with using clear nail polish, the chipped polish would get in the formula.

[Mel1959]

Why would the tape leach into the formula? You only need to submerge the tip of the syringe to draw up the formula, not the whole thing. Covering the tip with some tape and spraying an acrylic sealer onto the syringe might also help keep the numbers from washing off. I believe there are acrylic sealers that are food safe. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them at Lowe’s.

[redwuff]

In preparation for baby season, I am looking for a food-safe, tough(lasts through water, formula,washing) clear tape to put on outside of our feeding syringes, to make the measurements last. There are tough clear waterproof tapes out there, ie., gorilla tapes, but I wonder about chemicals in the tape leaching into the formula. Same with using clear nail polish, the chipped polish would get in the formula.

Hi Wills mom,

Yeah, that whole syringe issue is really a pain! It really makes me mad. But, let me share with you something that our very own Grinderhead came up with and I do every time I get a new syringe out. He scores the syringes on the important marks. So for instance, on the 1 cc syringe, I will score marks for every tenth the syringe has and estimate the in- between marks. Or a 3 cc syringe, I’ll score 3 marks or I might score six marks. I alway keep a separate syringe for medicating and when the numbers rub off I get a new one out.

I find it works really well and instead of throwing perfectly good syringes away cos numbers wore off in a few washings, I can keep these waaaay longer. Oh yeah, if I had the case of the lazies and did not score, we xeroxed a new syringe and covered the picture in a plastic sheet and use that as a template. I have tried different things to cover the marks and nothing works. Hope that helps.

[Will's Mom]

Why would the tape leach into the formula? You only need to submerge the tip of the syringe to draw up the formula, not the whole thing. Covering the tip with some tape and spraying an acrylic sealer onto the syringe might also help keep the numbers from washing off. I believe there are acrylic sealers that are food safe. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them at Lowe’s.

Thanks for the tip of acrylic sealer. Yes, ideally only the syringe tip would be submerged in the formula, but we feed between 150-200 squirrels each year at our rehab, with many hands doing the feeding, so I know that syringes do get sitting in the formula cup at times ☺

[Will's Mom]

Hi Wills mom,

Yeah, that whole syringe issue is really a pain! It really makes me mad. But, let me share with you something that our very own Grinderhead came up with and I do every time I get a new syringe out. He scores the syringes on the important marks. So for instance, on the 1 cc syringe, I will score marks for every tenth the syringe has and estimate the in- between marks. Or a 3 cc syringe, I’ll score 3 marks or I might score six marks. I alway keep a separate syringe for medicating and when the numbers rub off I get a new one out.

I find it works really well and instead of throwing perfectly good syringes away cos numbers wore off in a few washings, I can keep these waaaay longer. Oh yeah, if I had the case of the lazies and did not score, we xeroxed a new syringe and covered the picture in a plastic sheet and use that as a template. I have tried different things to cover the marks and nothing works. Hope that helps.

That is a clever idea! Thanks! ☺