How to change a diaper.

How to change a diaper. It’s not rocket science and it hardly seems the sort of thing to write a how-to blog entry about. However, it occupies much of my day so… write what you know. Everyone has a system. This is merely mine.

I use disposable diapers. If you’re using cloth diapers more power to you, seriously. I am a few hairs shy on the ol’ motivational meter to be using cloth diapers. I’m a self closeted hippie so I sort of wish I was using cloth. However, I live in an apartment and having to keep a keg of change and walk the diapers down to the communal laundry facility… it’s just more than I have the energy and motivation for at the end of a hard day of working the mommy salt mines.

So, I use disposable. I use the most expensive ones I can find (Huggies Supreme, in the red package… it feels like you’re wrapping their butt in a cloud) but only for the night. I’ll go into nighttime diapering techniques later. For the rest of the day I use cheap-o store brand. Hey – they’re just going to pee in it… why waste money on something more expensive. My usual day diaper of choice is Superstore ‘Teddy’s Choice’. It’s a decent cheap diaper.

If it’s pee – I don’t worry and I don’t wipe unless baby has a pre-existing diaper rash. Urine is sterile. Simple, remove wet diaper – roll into a ball (affixing with the tabs so it holds it’s football shape), try to get a basket when you throw it across the room into the garbage, put new diaper on. Tabs go in the front.

Ah, now for the big stuff. Poop. It’s what takes up a good part of the day. When wiping I start with the surface poo before moving to the crevasse poo. A few wipes to get all that poop off of where I can see it. Now to start peeling back that little baby fat so I can find the poop that’s hiding in all those cute little chubby hiding places. There you are. You can’t hide from me! Well… actually you can.. and if you do hide and linger then there is a chance of diaper rash coming to babytown and nobody wants that!

If baby peed… change the diaper and leave it be. If baby pooped… wash/wipe and clean the skin thoroughly. If there is a lingering rash I use store brand (Teddy’s Choice) Zinc Oxide cream. If there is no rash present then I usually forgo the cream. Unless it’s night-time. I always add the zinc oxide cream to a night diaper.
And of course, wash your hands shortly thereafter.

Baby’s happy. You’re happy. Baby waits until you lift him off the changing table then gleefully sets off the rictor scale that heralds the filling of the aforementioned and formerly clean diaper.

I’m pretty sure I missed a bunch of things. Another day, another diaper, another post.