Babies and Diapers and Blowouts, oh my!

A few people have told me they are surprised that I didn’t blog about Charlie’s blowouts.  Shame on me!

Blowouts are a right of passage into parenthood.  I am sure if asked, every mom, dad, grandparent or care giver has a blowout tale to tell.

For those of you who don’t know, blowouts are an eruption of poop so great that the force shoots the poop out of the diaper.  They come in all shapes and sizes. If you are lucky, they just cause a diaper to leak.  Sometimes though, these blowouts are so HUGE that they can go up the baby’s back, down their legs and all over anyone who is holding them at the time.  There has been more than one instance where we actually had to cut Charlie out of his clothing because we couldn’t get a poop stained onesie over his head without getting poop on his face.  No one wants poop on their face.

I have searched old emails to find some of Charlie’s great blowout stories.  For our family, two of his greatest blowouts occurred over the course of a few days in August. Once in the bathtub and once at mommy and me.

Aug 3, 2010 – The topic at mommy and me was a sensitive one for all of the mom’s: body image.  No matter how much any mom loves her baby, it doesn’t help coping with the body changes that come along with the package.  Needless to say, it was a very serious topic filled with a lot of emotion and a lot of tears.  At the end of our discussion, Jill, the leader of the class wanted to lead us all in a positive visualization exercise.   She had us close our eyes and began to speak.  Just as she was getting into it, we hear (and I feel) a huge water fart.  A few of the mom’s including myself giggled and then the visualization continued.  Seconds later, I feel that my shirt is warm.  I open my eyes and can’t help but repeating out loud, “OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!”  I looked down to find that I was COVERED in poop. It was leaking out of his diaper, all over the floor, on my diaper bag and all over me.  At this point I had said “OMG” enough times that all of the moms had opened their eyes. Charlie was like a geyser of poop. It just kept coming.  After he was done, he looked at me and smiled like he did the greatest trick. Needless to say,  he ruined the positive visualization, but he absolutely made the whole class break into hysterics.  I guess he doesn’t like to see a group of grown women cry.

Aug 10, 2010 – Once again, we were at mommy and me. I love that place!  Charlie was super exhausted so we left class early.  I put him in the ergo and walked to the parking lot where the car was valet parked.   Like many babies, Charlie moans or hums an  ”uhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhh” sound when he is tired.  I think he does it to lull himself to sleep.  When we got down to the garage, Alex, the attendant pulled the car around.  I transferred Charlie (he didn’t wake up, which is remarkable) and drove home.  Once home, I transferred him into the stroller and went for a walk so that he could continue his nap.  All in all, he probably slept for 30 minutes, which doesn’t qualify for a good nap in baby land. Needless to say, he was beat.  I did everything I could to extend his bed time.  At 5:45 I put him in the bath. We normally do this around 6:30 but this kid had beet red eyes and was still moaning so I knew I had to move up the schedule.  Within seconds of hitting the water….BLOWOUT!  We are talking all over the tub, him, his wash cloth, he even managed to get my pants.  No part of the tub was left unscathed.  Poop was floating everywhere!  I had to drain the tub, clean it while holding him (because he was covered in pieces of poop) rinse him, clean the tub again and then draw a new bath. Luckily, he wasn’t a repeat offender with the second bath.

Aug 12, 2010 – This is an email I wrote to the mom’s at mommy and me.  So I know you have all been dying to know what has been causing Charlie’s infamous blowouts.  Well, wait not more!  As most of you know, we started supplementing with formula about 2 weeks ago when Charlie stopped packing on the pounds from BM alone.  Turns out, Charlie is intolerant to milk proteins, just like me.  We switched him over to Similac Soy and besides the bathtub blowout of 2010, everything has stayed contained to his diaper.  Even more exciting is he is now sleeping for 12 hours. He was doing this when we first started sleep training, but then started waking up a few times a night.  In hindsight, we realized that he started waking up when we started supplementing.  We switched his formula last Friday and starting Monday night he has slept through the nights without a peep (I hope I didn’t just jinx the situation).  Anyway, I thought it was interesting and since I have been keeping you abreast of his bowels I figured I’d share.  I bet y’all didn’t think you were going to read a sentence that had “abreast of his bowels” in it today, did you?

Tags: baby poop, breast milk, diaper blowout, formula, similac soy