I Bet No One Has Ever Had THIS Diaper Problem Before

Tags

babies, child care, child development, cloth diapers, diapers, disposable diapers, health, toddlers

Our baby has no bum.

When rear ends were being handed out, Owl was at the back of the line, or possibly not even in the building. I sometimes wonder whether the reason he hovers in the 10th percentile is simply because other babies have bums.

Normally, we don’t really notice our child’s complete lack of buttocks. His cloth diapers are thick and bulky, and they hold his pants up very well, while also providing a nice cushion for landing on.

^artificial bum

But when we travel, and we put him in disposables, we REALLY NOTICE. First of all, when he topples over he is much more likely to cry, as there is very little padding to protect his wee tail bone. Secondly, his pants DON’T STAY ON.

It’s really quite ridiculous. We had to pin all of his pants at the waist to keep them on when we went home for Christmas, and my mother in law had to actually hem and alter the pants on his little suit that my mother gave him – it was a 12 month size and he was 15 months old but WE HAD TO ALTER HIS PANTS.

Altered pants: STILL TOO BIG

Even then, the pants didn’t stay on well.

When Owl is in disposables, even the pants that are normally too snug on him hang down until he looks like a little gangster.

Owl in disposables

There’s simply no way to keep them on, because he has no waist for them to hang on. His body tapers from the shoulders like a carrot.

and this is in a swim diaper, which is still pretty bulky

But we never considered that we might actually be causing his bum deficiency.

We were shown the error of our ways by the Helper Lady at Owl’s daycare.

I picked Owl up a couple of days ago and found him wearing a disposable diaper.

“Helper Lady put him in that, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with her,” said Daycare Lady. “She asked me to pass on a message to you, because her English isn’t good enough for her to explain it to you in person.”

“Oh?”

“She thinks that his cloth diapers are the cause of his diaper rash.”

“You mean the diaper rash that started when we tried using wet wipes on him, and that has been clearing up ever since we went back to cotton wipes and water?”

“Yes. It’s looking a lot better. Um, she also wanted me to tell you that she thinks that the cloth diapers are constricting his bottom, and that’s why it’s so small.”

“…what?”

“She thinks that they don’t breathe properly, and they are snug on him, and that’s keeping his bottom from growing as fast as his top part…”

Guess who has two thumbs and a corset on his bum? THIS BABY

“…REALLY?”

“You’re lucky she doesn’t speak English! She used to be a high school teacher! She’s very DEFINITE about her views!”

I brought Owl back to daycare in a cloth diaper the next day anyway, but if anyone knows a website where I can find information about the risks of disposable diapers or the benefits of cloth diapers in Farsi, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Meanwhile, I need to think about warning Happy Nappy about this unanticipated effect of their diapers on infant bum development.

Because apparently baby bums are like goldfish: they only grow if given a roomy enough container.

WHO KNEW?

Speaking of Poop: Another Disposable Diaper Rant

Tags

babies, baby poop, cloth diapers, diaper leaks, diapers, disposable diapers, parenting, travel

I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. We’ll see if I can do it with this puppy tied to me, alternately chewing on her bully bone and yelping in my ear.

When we went to Nova Scotia I gave disposable diapers another chance.

I put my cloth diaper service, Happy Nappy, on hold while I was gone and went off to the plane with some disposables left over from a diaper cake that I received when Babby was born.

By the time we landed in NS, Babby had had three clothing changes. The first happened in the airport, because when we arrived we discovered that he was already soaked in urine. This turned out not to be the diaper’s fault. PH, bleary eyed at five in the morning, diapering Babby in the dark, and unaccustomed to disposables, had accidentally put the diaper on backwards.

Kind of thing that could happen to anyone, I’m sure.

So we put a new diaper on, frontwards, and dressed Babby in dry clothes.

Half way to Toronto I discovered that Babby’s back was covered in poo. I did a full diaper change (which was not a ton of fun in a airplane washroom) and washed all the poop off of Babby’s back, and dressed him in yet another set of clothes.

The next couple of diaper changes were just pee, so they were fine.

Then, not half an hour before landing in Halifax, I went to change Babby’s diaper and discovered… you guessed it… poop up his back. 

Another set of clothes. Good thing I came prepared.

The poop-up-the-back scenario repeated itself on a nearly daily basis during my time in NS. I tried a couple of different brands, to no avail.

The most dramatic event happened while I was in Halifax for the day. I planned to visit Hodgepodge, then visit Perfect Girlfriend at her work, visit my old coworkers at my old work, and then have dinner with my cousins.

So there I am, hanging out with Hodgepodge, while Babby plays with the world of toys in her play room and squeals delightedly at the kids around him. He pushes himself to sitting from his stomach for the first time while we chat, and I am very proud of him. He starts to fuss so I pick him up and nurse him. When he finishes I sit him up, and realize that there is poo on my hand.

The poo, I quickly discover, came from under his shirt. I lift the back of his shirt and discover that it is all up his back – again – and now it is on my hands. I swear, lift him up, and realize that there is poo on my pants, where he lay as he nursed. On, and on my shirt, as well. Oh, and on my cell phone. 

This is, by no means, the worst poop incident I have ever dealt with. I said before Babby was born that after dealing with dogs, no poop would faze me, and I stick by that assertion. But on the other hand, I do object to being on a day trip to the big city only to discover that I am covered in poop from head to toe, and realize that while I brought changes of clothes for Babby I brought none for myself.

Did I mention that the poop was a bright Babby-had-scrambled-eggs-for-breakfast yellow? With that squirty, squishy consistency of a still heavily breastfed baby?

Hodgepodge, who runs a day home, was completely unfazed and helped me clean Babby and myself up as much as possible. My pants were dark, so once wiped the poop stain wasn’t particularly prominent. But my blue shirt did not merge well with baby poop stains.

So now I had a clean baby, cleanlooking pants, a cell phone that only had some minor yellow poop drying in the cracks, and two prominent yellow poop stains on my shirt – one over my boob and one over my stomach.

Grand.

Hodgepodge raided her closets and found me a baggy white t-shirt to change into, which I did gratefully. Now that the postal strike is over I need to get my mother to mail that shirt back to her.

I then left to go visit my coworkers and my best friend in a baggy white t-shirt. While at the mall I bought a new shirt just so I could go to dinner with my cousins without feeling like someone who was pooped on that morning.

Disposables? SUCK.

The next time we ran low on diapers, Perfect Husband brought home some Huggies, which advertised “leak-lock” technology. And you know what? After that, we didn’t have any more poop squirting up Babby’s back.

…It came down the legs, instead.

At least this outfit didn’t get poop stained until AFTER the service!

Disposable Diapers Are Literally Crappy

Tags

cloth diapers, diapering, disposable diapers

So while we were in Nova Scotia, our diaper service was suspended. This meant that we had to buy some disposables to get us through. We do own a few cloth diapers of our own – gifts from a friend – and they are lovely but we only have the four. That wouldn’t get us through a day. So we went out and bought some Pampers.

When Babby and I arrived in Halifax, I noticed a spot on the back of his jammies when his grandmother was cuddling him. Since I’m not in the habit of lying my baby down in filth, I couldn’t figure out what it could be.

I found out at the next diaper change.,

POO.

The splotch was liquid, squirty baby poo which had spurted up through the back of his diaper and into his jammies. It was crusted all along his back.

I was unimpressed.

This became a regular occurrence. Not quite daily, but at least every second day, there would be a blowout situation in which feces somehow escaped Babby’s diaper and ended up on his clothes. It spread everywhere within his diaper – all over his penis and scrotum, all along his butt cheeks and then WHEEEE! up his back. Nor did it have the innocuous and virtually unnoticeable odour of his usual poops. Trapped in the greenhouse of the diaper, it developed a pervasive aroma which had me wrinkling my nose during diaper and clothing changes.

Not only this, but I discovered that the “whisk away wetness” properties of the disposable had the unpleasant effect of somehow desiccating the poop after it had finished its jolly roving ways, so that it was bonded stubbornly to my baby’s skin. I found myself gripping his tiny penis while scrubbing relentlessly at its base, trying to remove line of brown-green crust.

The real kicker happened a few days in, however. Upon removing a diaper one morning, I saw glistening droplets sparkling on my baby’s scrotum, and realized that I was looking at a proliferation of tiny, gummy chemical beads. They were scattered on his scrotum, his penis, his lower abdomen, and even down on his buttocks. The inside lining of the diaper had torn somehow, and the moisture-absorbing chemicals from within has spilled out all over my baby. Indignant, I immediately went to wipe those beads off of my baby’s genitalia, only to find that they wouldn’t come off. They stuck to my baby’s skin like chewing gum in hair, and wiping had no effect on them. In the end I had to take him into the bathroom and dunk his bottom in the sink and rinse the goop away.

He screamed like a stuck pig the whole time, I need not add.

Between the smell, the poop leaks, and the chemical explosion, disposable diapers were not getting a good review from me. Now, don’t get me wrong, cloth diapers leak too. They leak pee. If you don’t cover the cloth with the diaper cover properly, the wet diaper comes in contact with the baby’s clothes and a wet spot appears. It isn’t unusual for me to have to change Babby’s clothes in the morning after a 10 hour marathon overnight, especially if I’m using one of our poorer diaper covers.

But that’s just pee. Urine is harmless. It’s sterile, for one thing. It’s non-staining, for another. Not to mention that Babby is on an all-liquid diet so he pees round the clock, and if you’ve ever drunk a massive amount of liquid in one day, you’ll know how dilute your pee gets, so Babby’s pee is practically pure water. So the occasional wet spot on his clothes has never fazed me.

But poo is different.

Poo (even baby poo, which is the most innocuous of all poos) is GROSS.

And chemicals? Chemicals are CREEPY.

Me = UNIMPRESSED.

I developed a new strategy. On top of the disposable, I layered one of the massive deluxe cloth diapers that PH’s friend had given us. I only had four, but since a poo-splosion only occurred once a day or so, that was fine. It made Babby’s bum a little bulky, but I’ve always like a baby with a pat-able bottom anyhow.

My logic was that the poo, squirting out of the flimsy disposable, would meet the superior friction of the cloth and be stopped in its tracks.

It worked about 50% of the time.

So then I put a diaper cover over the cloth-disposable diaper combo, in the hopes that it might catch even more poo.

Babby’s bottom, swathed in three layers, now resembled a bowling ball and had the disturbingly spheroid look which I associate with very old, fat men in bad pants.

On our last day in Nova Scotia, Babby was sitting on PH’s mother’s knee when he got that George W. Bush-look on his face of perplexed concentration and let a loud one fly. Babby’s grandmother remarked good naturedly that she could feel the warmth of that one, so it must have been a veritable dump indeed.

It took a minute for it to sink through my brain.

Babby is wearing three layers.

NO poo is THAT warm.

“Uh… maybe I should change that diaper,” I said, reaching for my baby. I usually avoid snatching Babby out of people’s arms, because people are  pretty good about giving the baby back when they’re tired of him, and I don’t want to be one of those snatchy mothers. But I had a reason for this, and my fears were confirmed when I lifted him off of her knee.

There was a splotch on his pyjamas, running down his leg.

It matched a splotch on his grandmother’s knee.

We did a load of laundry that night and I could not wait to get home to our lovely, fuzzy, POO-RETAINING cloth diapers.

home sweet home

 

At least the poo will come in an adorably fluffy package

Tags

cloth diapers, diaper service, disposable diapers, feces, happy nappy, parenting

Photo credit to Happy Nappy Diaper Service

I have officially signed up for our diaper service!

For some reason I had been lulled into believing that as a relatively crunchy future mom I would be fairly into the mainstream in Vancouver of all places. I have been disillusioned of this, now. When we mention that we’re going to use cloth diapers, we often get raised eyebrows and an uncomfortable glance to the side, the way you might react if you met someone who informed you that they plan to use an outhouse instead of indoor plumbing.

You can tell they are thinking, “I bet they last a week”, and Perfect Husband has even received “pooper scooper” jokes.

One friend couldn’t get over the idea that the diapers would be brought to me only once a week.

“What if you run out?” she said. “You’ll run out for sure.”

We reassured her that the service is probably accustomed to providing a week’s supply of diapers at a time and most weeks should be able to correctly gauge how many we will need, based on the age of our baby and so on. We recieved a look of pity.

“You don’t understand how many diapers babies go through. My son had diarrhea once and went through ten diapers in six hours!”

I can see running out on a rare occasion, when our family’s Oregon Trail brings us the odd case of dysentary. But in the event of such a crisis, I’m pretty sure we could either run out to the store for some disposables or – stay with me here – wash some ourselves.

Maybe cloth diapers won’t work for us. But I find disposable diapers so disgusting that I am strongly motivated to make cloth diapering work. Besides, I got committed to getting a diaper service when I was 17 years old. Our Family Studies class compared the pros and cons of cloth vs disposables, including cost comparisons. I’ve spent the last decade assuming I would use a diaper service some day, so somehow in my head it became normal and I am now beginning to realize that it really isn’t, to most people.

I don’t really see what the big deal is. The diaper service doesn’t even require us to do any kind of pre-rinsing of the diapers. We take ’em off, fold ’em up, and dump them in the 14 gallon carbon-filtered diaper pail they will bring us. Is that so different from folding them up and dumping them in the garbage pail? But these diapers will be softer, better for baby’s skin, and way better for the environment, not to mention the public waste disposal costs of the government.

I also like that I know how much money we will spend on diapers over babby’s lifetime. Give or take the occasional purchase of disposables for travelling purposes, we can work out that we will spend approximately $3,000 on diapers. Since most diaper services offer their services free if your baby isn’t toilet trained by a certain age (our service’s cut-off is 30 months), diapers will become free after that point, even if we still need them. So, no pressure on Babby to toilet train – Mommy and Daddy want their money’s worth :-p

Then again, it helps that I have no fear of feces. Many mothers I have spoken to feel the need to impress on me just how surprising the amount and degree of feces was to them.  But after what I have done for a living, I really feel that while I will certainly have miserable moments, I won’t be shocked by them. My poo-shock factor has entirely been destroyed by previously traumatic episodes. So that’s a point in our favour for our attempt at cloth diapering.

Anyway, the really aggravating thing is trying to register for your baby shower when you’re the kind of person who plans on cloth-diapering her child. You know what we need, more than bouncy chairs or gift baskets filled with creams? Diaper covers. Oh, and swim diapers, because I want to take babby swimming. But Babies R Us has all of ONE selection for infant diaper covers, and I don’t even mean one brand. I mean one pattern. But we have to register somewhere fairly universal because so many of our loved ones may want to buy us things from afar. We’ll just have to hope it passes by word of mouth that we also would like diaper covers and other crunchy gifts which most stores don’t even carry.

In other news, Perfect Husband feels I neglected my duties in my previous post, because while I mentioned that we had a name for our son, and our name for our daughter, I completely forgot to mention our “scary neuter baby born without junk”. That’s right – the name-choosing has carried into what to call a hermaphroditic or otherwise gender-indeterminate child. We have all gender options covered.