I am a little embarrassed to admit this—but I recently cried (more like wailed, haha) over changing Tala’s diapers.
Jerome and I just gave her a bath—which by itself is a production number for us now since we are still getting our act together when it comes to bathing a newborn (she’s so small but it’s not easy!)—and we placed her on the changing table wrapped in her bath towel. She was crying loudly with limbs flailing and she hit a soiled diaper with her left foot.
“Oh no, it’s my fault again! Me again!” I sobbed in Bisaya. I forgot to seal that soiled diaper and put it in the garbage bin when I cleaned her poop right before we gave her a bath. :’(
“Stop crying na, Langga.” Jerome said and took over changing our baby’s diaper and getting her dressed.
A bit later, when Tala was sleeping and I had the chance to take a bath, I wondered about what happened and what made me cry.
It dawned on me : I cried because I am a perfectionist. (And because I was tired, I lacked sleep, I was scared, etc, etc, etc…)
And it irks me that after more than 2 weeks of doing it many times a day, I still have not “mastered” changing my baby’s diapers.
We actually have a nice set-up for her changing table! I mean, we prepared for this daily event of giving her a bath and changing nappies!
We got two Steve drawers from Mandaue Foam at Php 1000 from the original price of about Php 5000 each. (Such a good bargain!) Jerome then elevated them by placing legs at the bottom so that they would be just about the right height for me.
We placed a rubber mat over the top and a cloth rug on the floor below it.
We set-up a basket containing 2 ketchup plastic bottles (one containing clean water, the other containing a diluted cleanser), the cleanser, diaper rash cream, cotton buds, alcohol. We had a container for cotton balls, an insulated canister with hot water (so we wouldn’t have to keep on heating water, but I think it would be easier to have a push-button thermos instead), a glass where we will mix the hot and tap water and in which we will dip the cotton balls.
These were all on the right side since Jerome and I are both right-handed; having these materials on the side of our dominant hand would save us the trouble of crossing our arms to reach for these stuff while the left hand would inevitably hold Tala’s kicking legs. Hehe.
With this well-planned set-up, how come it can still be so hard for me?!
The answer came from my loving and supportive mommy friends who let me rant my heart out. It’s difficult for me because I am being too hard on myself, I am over-thinking things, and I need to accept that I will make mistakes.
Somehow their words lightened up my mood big time! (Love and light to all my mommy friends, you know who you are!)
And now I am inspired to get better at this diaper-changing challenge! :) I would not say I am now an expert (Jerome still does it faster than I do), but it has been around a dozen diaper-changes after that incident and I haven’t cried over poop and pee since then (but I cried over many other things, haha).
To all newbie parents like us, this too shall pass! <3
