Silver Nitrate on Baby's Cord

Just leave it alone and wait for it to fall off.

I believe, when my kids were little, we were supposed to swab the area with rubbing alcohol... that was supposed to help it dry up and fall off... and it usually fell off within a week.

However, my youngest is now 21, and my oldest is 31, so that advice is VERY old... I have no idea if that is the current thought/instruction.

15 yrs ago we were told to swab with alcohol, and fold the diaper down a bit so it would air out/dry out and not rub against it.
It dried up and fell off in about 9 days.
Keep it clean and dry till it falls off.

Leave it alone - FYI the alcohol is a no-no now. I know. Times change, but I asked the DR after mine were born because my mom kept saying I needed to do it:)

My son needed silver nitrate applied to his cord stub twice before it fell off. They told us to leave it alone, but that was ten years ago. Put a call in to your clinic and ask your doctor's nurse for specific instructions.

My youngest daughter had a cord that fell off but I kept seeing this little white bump-type thing inside her new belly-button. Not knowing what this was, I brought her back to the pediatrician and she told me it was an umbilical granuloma. Well, after I nearly died from hearing some scary word that had the -oma on the end of it, I collected myself enough to have her tell me that it happens all the time and that she was going to take a silver nitrate stick and basically "close" the tissue with it and the granuloma would be gone. After this, it looked a little funky where the silver nitrate was placed for a few days but it eventually wore off and her very cute and beautiful belly-button healed nicely. You basically just keep the area clean and dry and let mother nature run it's course. No need to do a thing....it will heal up, dry up rapidly, and simply fall off.