Sweet Yet Sour

How Not to Change A Diaper

Monday, July 14th, 2008 | Mom Stuff | 4 Comments

Parenting is a 24/7 job with no breaks and barely any sleep.  Thankfully it also has some moments of hilarity.

Even if you have experience changing diapers, the whole process is different when it’s your own child and you have not had a lot of sleep.  For the first few weeks we were both amazed at the sheer size and weight of the things we would see in Anna’s diaper, considering what a small child it was all coming from.  And we began to learn to be quick with the changing or we would regret it and have to do more clean up.

Newborn poop, just as an FYI, does not look like adult poop.  For the first few days it’s like black sticky tar, while the baby gets the stuff out that they digested in the womb.  After that, if the baby is breastfed, the diapers begin to fill with pee and this strange yellow, liquidy, seedy stuff.  Apparently breastmilk is so nutritious that the baby absorbs most of what they eat so the yellow liquid is all that’s left.

Unfortunately this liquidy stuff is an easy projectile, especially when combined with the jet fuel that is baby gas.  I think it was the second week that Anna was home when I was changing her diaper at about 5 a.m. and I felt the full brunt of this lesson.

I had just gotten the dirty diaper off when all of a sudden the poop launched out of my sweet little daughter and all over the changing pad and all over the wall.  It was as if Jackson Pollock had been in Anna’s room.  But don’t worry, it didn’t miss me either.  My pajama bottoms and my top were splattered in a 10 inch wide swath of yellow spray.  I had to laugh!  I started to clean all of this up when I realized that Mike would really want to see the damage as well.  He laughed when he saw the room and me and it was good to share the laughter with him.

It was then that we decided that we needed more than 2 changing pad covers, just in case this ever happened again.

Since then, I have generally been more speedy about changing her diapers to avoid these type of messes, but every once in a while I slip.The other night at 2:30 a.m. was the worst diaper change I have had since the wall painting incident.  I generally change Anna’s diaper in the middle of her feedings to keep her awake (breastmilk is pretty soporific so if you don’t wake the baby during the feeding the baby will be hungry again soon).

So halfway through the 2 a.m. feeding I began my usual diaper change.  I took the dirty diaper off and wondered why there was so little in the diaper since Anna had been asleep for 5 hours.  I was just opening up the new diaper when the yellow poo was launched from the launch pad.  Fortunately, there was not that much, so it stayed within the confines of the changing pad and didn’t get on Anna’s outfit.

I lifted the baby up, wiped her off, put her into her crib, changed the changing pad cover and put the baby back on the changing pad.  Some of the poop had gotten on the first new diaper, so I had to get a new one out.  I had the diaper open and my hand under her bottom when Anna decided that it was time to pee.  On me.  On the new diaper.  On the new changing pad cover.  On her outfit…

Now I have to take Anna’s outfit off, wipe her down, and put her back into the crib and it’s on to the next changing pad cover.  (We now own 5 changing pad covers and even then the next day I had to do laundry and resort to using a towel on the pad while the wash was going.) With the new changing pad cover on, I put the baby back on the pad, and get out a new diaper and a new outfit.  By now, the baby is fully awake and I know that I will now have a hard time getting her to back to sleep.

Anna, in the meantime, smiles all the way through this whole process.  She smiled when she projectile pooped, she smiled when she peed and she continues to smile and make sweet little gurgles at me every time I change her.

I was finally able to get a diaper and a new outfit on Anna without getting peed on or sprayed with baby mustard.  I took her back to the rocking chair and began the second half of the feeding.Here’s the problem, suckling gets a baby’s intestines going so they generally poop either during or after they eat.  Yep, you guessed it.  During the second half of the feeding, Anna had some more poop to get out.  This time it leaked out the side of the diaper (since she is laying on her side) and on to the blanket that I have placed on my lap for just such an occasion.  (During the first week I went through three pairs of pajama pants before I learned this trick.)

Is anyone else laughing at this point?  I was, even if it was 2:30 a.m.  This was definitely a lesson in how NOT to get through a diaper change!