diaper attack

Diaper Changes Going to the Dark Side

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The many faces of my diaper dandy.

Please feel free to chime in on this situation if you have any pointers.

My glorious 9-month-old daughter has really started to ramp up her frustration level during diaper changes. I’ve taken a close look at some of the most common issues, but nothing seems to jump out as the cause of all this angst.
 
Maddie has never liked to be messed with. The baby gets annoyed when you pull a shirt over her head. She even gets fired up when you put pants on her. But lately, the diaper change has Maddie truly embracing the dark side of the force.
 
Changing the diaper is an activity that I have always tried to keep lighthearted and maybe even a little bit fun. The changing process is usually accompanied by a song or shared conversation. However, diaper changes over the course of the past week have really turned into a series of baby tantrums complete with kicking and some less-than-pleasant screaming.
  • She isn’t struggling with any type of diaper rash.
  • There has been no deviation in the changing method.
  • In the past we have used toys or items to distract her.
It’s almost the thought of the diaper change itself that sets Maddie on this rocky course more than the actual change itself. I suppose these bad moods are more intense when the baby is tired, but there still seems to be little reason for such an Oscar-worthy performance.
 
Maddie’s parents concluded a long time ago that Maddie hates having a dirty diaper, but hates having it changed just as much. The fact that she is being awarded a clean diaper in the process is completely irrelevant.
 
To my knowledge, she has never had a bad experience while going through the motions. So we have no idea what is troubling her now.
 
To our knowledge, Maddie is not experiencing any physical discomfort, just the anguish of believing that she might be missing something interesting during the event. Hopefully this diaper change of discontent is just a phase that will be over sooner than later. But for now, the days of the easy diaper-living have come and gone only to be replaced by small arms fire and looting in the streets.

This entry was posted in Child Development, Children, Diaper Change, Family, Parenting, Poop Happens and tagged , , , , , , , .

Guest Blogger Swept Up in Double Trouble

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After reading Diaper Change Triggers Honey Badger Attack – A fellow Stay Home PaPa named LJ Burton told me about the double threat he faces from his two-year-old twins. LJ is our first ever Stay Home PaPa guest blogger.

By LJ Burton:

My newest two daughters, twin girls that will be 2yrs old close to the end of this month and like Maddie, they have learned several new tricks themselves.

The bigger of the two, Kassie, has somewhat of a Houdini streak in her. She is adept at getting out of her own clothes, particularly her nighttime sleeper. But that’s not enough. Once she gets the sleeper off during the night, she’ll manage to take off her diaper. Sometimes the diaper is found thrown underneath her crib, other times it’s stuffed down in the leg of the sleeper. Mostly it’s been a wet diaper when this happens, but a few times it’s been a messy one. Oh what fun!!!

Her twin sister, who’s also the oldest of the two and the smaller one, sometimes becomes Kassie’s dress up doll. She’ll manage to unzip and disrobe her sister and on occasion will also take her sister’s diaper off as well. The latest occurrence was just this morning. We’ve managed to somewhat stymie all of this disrobing by using a safety pin on the sleeper’s zippers, but that doesn’t always stop them. On night Kassie managed to pull the head off the safety pin, then proceed with her usual disrobing.

As if that’s not enough, Kassie has become very skilled at climbing in and out of her crib as well as her sister’s crib. She managed to go to such lengths that at the height of her activities she extracted a container of socks from the top of a dresser drawer, carried that container over into her sister’s crib, then climbed into her sister’s crib to throw them all around. Before she climbed into her sister’s crib she managed to pull all of their clothes out of the dresser’s three drawers and decorate them around their bedroom.

As if that’s not enough, my wife found Kati, the smaller of the two, sitting on the top of our cat’s condo tower earlier this morning. It stands about 4ft high and is about 2ft square and has three levels. There’s an armchair sitting next to the cat condo, but we still don’t know how she managed to climb up there. Particularly without falling in the process.

Kicking while being diapered seems like a walk in the park by comparison. 🙂 I’ll trade with you for a while if you’d like to see what it’s like with multiples!

This entry was posted in Diaper Change, Guest Blogger, Poop Happens and tagged , , , , , , , .

Diaper Change Triggers Honey Badger Attack

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Get ready to rumble!

In recent weeks, the whole concept of clothes and diaper changes has fallen out of favor with our little honey badger. Maddie’s legendary kicking has only intensified and now diaper changes and wardrobe switches have devolved into a messy street fight. The ultimate problem is that Maddie does not like to be messed with and is rarely shy about sharing her stronger opinions.

Let’s start with the diaper change chronicles and figure out what’s been going on up until today. The problem really hasn’t been taking off the diaper; the challenge has been trying to put on a new one.

This in itself was not a terrible issue to have, just a bit time consuming. Once the diaper comes off and the clean up is finished – most of the hard work is done. But the simple task of putting on the new diaper has been a bit complicated.

The wild kicks have been causing some concern because those wild feet have been finding there way off of the changing mat and crashing into the hard wood of the table. (OUCH!) Maddie doesn’t seem to mind, but I still cringe every time it happens.

Another issue is when the baby kicks the diaper. I don’t mind having a clean diaper kicked out of my hand, but when it’s full a special treats, that’s another issue altogether. Also, trying to fasten the new diaper while Maddie is flailing away like a steel cage fighter in the heat of battle has its drawbacks.

These little tricks were really no big deal until today when things may have taken a terrifying turn for the worst. I hope it was only a fluke, but on two separate occasions, Maddie grasped the fastener on her dirty diapers and ripped it open herself.

Neither one of these incidents caused a great deal of disruption, but the specter of true carnage is hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles. I’m counting on the fact that these were isolated incidents. If Maddie has truly figured out how to release the fury all by herself, her parents are in for a special round of enjoyment.

This entry was posted in Clothing, Diaper Change, Hands & Feet, Honey Badger and tagged , , , , , .