Let’s talk about poo.
In your pre-baby life, poo has not been an important part of your everyday conversations.
As a new dad, you are going to be talking about poo all the time.
This is because your newborn baby will be defecating anywhere between 2-6 times a day—usually in a diaper, but sometimes in unexpected, unwanted, and exciting places.
Every parent has a gross poo story. It is time to discover yours.
The first poo that comes out of your baby is called meconium. This is the first poo that comes out of the baby after birth. It is black/green, sticky, and hard to clean off.
After 3 or 4 days, the poo morphs into this brown, green, and/or yellow mess. Around day 5, your baby’s poo will look dark yellow, soft, and seedy.
Now, this all sounds a little disgusting, and it is, but not as much as you would think. A newborn baby’s poo does not really smell that bad and does not really look like what comes out of adults, so you can disassociate from the grossness a little bit.
Newborn baby poo smells faintly like that pervasive “baby smell”. Basically, not that bad, at least not until a baby starts eating solids.
Most of the baby’s poo will get into the diaper; however, there is that 1% that ends up, well, not in the diaper.
When a baby outgrows her diaper, you will know because poo will leak and it will be a chaotic mess wherever this happens to occur.
Big leaks can also happen if the diaper is not correctly hiked far enough up your baby’s backside, or the diaper’s liner does not adequately cover the catchment zone.
Babies also will poo anywhere, anytime, including while you are changing her which can create a really messy situation.
One time when my wife was changing diapers, Victoria let spew a jetstream of poo onto the floor, the changing table, and my wife’s bathrobe. Projectile poo. It was utter chaos for half an hour having to deal with this. But still really funny! Mostly funny because it hit my wife and not me.
When shit happens, you really just have to deal with it.
A good way to clean poo off of fabric is by soaking it in water with some added baking soda for a few hours, and then running it in the wash.
Use cold water for the soak and for the wash. It is a good idea to have a basin on hand dedicated to soaking poo-stained clothing and linens.
As a detergent, I use Nellie’s All-Natural Baby Laundry. It is a baking soda-based detergent that is very mild and baby-safe.
With the soak-and-wash technique, most of the poo should come off.
Get used to touching poo directly with your hands.
You may even accidentally get it in your mouth.
You may well be covered with the stuff from time to time.
It is going to happen so just deal with it early on. If you want to dive right in, just place your hand in a soiled diaper and force yourself to hold it there for 30 seconds. It will get you used to the grossness of it.
Fortunately, poo takes the form of the yellow-seedy phase for the majority of the first three months—this stuff is easy to clean off and does not smell too bad.
After a baby starts eating solids–for us it was around 6 months–a baby’s poo starts smelling like, well, yours. It is a startling revelation when your darling little one starts outputting adult-smelling poo.
When a baby poos, it can be explosive.
It sounds like the largest, rudest fart you ever heard followed quickly by a gross squelching sound. One time when we were in church with Victoria, she defecated so loud that people several pews around us were searching around for the culprit. Whenever this sort of thing happens, just blame the baby.
Those are my random thoughts on poo, after nearly a year’s experience being a dad.
Post your poo story below, I’d love to hear it 🙂