Diaper Doody, errr, Duty

3/22/2013

I have quite a bit of child care experience under my belt. 10 years of baby sitting experience to be exact! Granted, that was 15 years ago.

When the nurse came into our room and asked if we'd changed our brand new baby's diaper yet, my husband and I looked at each other quizzically. Like, the thought hadn't even crossed our minds! Diaper?? Must have been nothing new for the nurse and she went right on ahead and did it herself as we both watched in awe. Awe turned to vehement disgust as that diaper unveiled the most atrocious contents one has ever seen. A big bad steaming pile of meconium!! I took a step back and the words were not even necessary. My body (and face) language said it all - I'm not touching that!! So she quickly cleaned it up and that was that!! The next diaper, my husband did with the nurse's help. I got it on video cuz he was just so darn cute and proud to be changing his very first diaper!! (This novelty soon wore off, for sure!).

Once at home, I quickly adapted a system whereas I put the new diaper down under him before I undid the first diaper. Then I open up old diaper, and quickly cover his wee-wee with a wipe, and use the old diaper to wipe away any major poop. Then I wipe him clean and strap him in the new diaper. Usually, a simple process. However, the first couple of weeks gave us many a diaper mishaps. There were several instances where I would blow through 3 diapers in one changing!! I just didn't have the timing right, and I would change him mid-poop apparently! This not only ended with many wasted diapers, but also with poop on my hands, my arms, all over the changing table, and on the neighboring walls, ughhhhhhhhhhhh!! Now I've gotten to know his grunts and muscle contractions so I tend to know when he's still working on something, and I wait it out ^_^

We also had drama due to the actual diapers. We came home with a starter pack of Pampers Swaddlers complements of the hospital. These were great! Then, I found a sale on Huggies and got those next. But he had MAJOR leakage around his legs EVERY TIME he pooped!! You couldn't lay him anywhere without him leaving behind some breastmilky poopy goo! YUCK! We quickly switched back to Pampers which have been great and we've gone from Newborn, to size one, to size two, and are about to switch to size 3. But Pampers are quite pricey. So I'm gonna try Luvs when we switch to size 3. They're sooooo much cheaper, I just hope they work for him!

Talking to my mommy (and daddy) friends, it seems quite common that one brand will work great for one baby and terrible for another. And one brand will work fine in one size, but the next size is no good. Unfortunately, the smallest packs of diapers sold are generally about 40-60 diapers, and while my mother argues you could just return them if they don't work, most people I know wouldn't be comfortable returning an opened and partially used box of diapers. So, why don't they sell smaller sample packs?? It really would be to their benefit. People could try out a new brand, and they'd switch if they like it! They sell small packs of wipes (for travel), so why not diapers?? Hmmmmm... you'll see more on this later - stay posted!!!