I know we should never put ourselves down, but boy, I can be right stupid at times.
Just before the birth of my firstborn, I was invited to the hospital to look around the birthing suite and to have the opportunity to ask any burning questions. At one point, the midwife began talking about nappy changing and said,
“Here’s something you need to know. As the first couple of poos are very sticky, it’s difficult to clean the baby, so use this.”
She held up a tub of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) and said,
“If you put this on first, then it will be easier for you to wipe off the poo. Put loads of it on and then you will find your job much easier.”
I made a mental note of her valuable advice and purchased a tub as soon as I got home. After my daughter Sarah was born, I awoke to a crying sound coming from the end of my hospital bed. She had been the only child on the ward to have woken up 3 times in the night and I wearily switched on my side light and dashed to her cot.
On inspection of her nappy, it was clear that the dreaded ‘first manoeuvre’ had occurred, so I rummaged through my things to find the Vaseline pot. Remembering that the midwife had instructed us to smear it on first, I dug out a large clump and popped it on top of the green stuff that was all over her bottom and up her back. As I spread the jelly with my fingers, the mess seemed to be getting worse. Wanting to follow everybody’s advice to the letter, I grabbed a bag of cotton wool pads with my elbow, placed it across my tummy and with the other elbow (my hands were covered in muck, remember) tried to get a few out of the polythene bag. For, my older sister was a neonatal nurse and had told me that baby-wipes should never be used on a new-born baby.
“Only cotton wool for the first few weeks.” She had told me.
As I smeared the cotton wool pads across the skin, large pieces of fluff stuck to the goo. This was not working!
I rubbed up and down, round and round and the goo followed my fingers and stopped where they stopped. It clung to the baby’s body and to my hands and certainly was not coming off smoothly the way I had been told it would. A lady in the bed opposite groaned because the light had been on for so long and her little tot was beginning to stir.
“Sorry!” I whispered loudly. “I’m in a bit of a mess.”
I looked down at Sarah who with so much cotton wool stuck to her skin, looked like a mouldy sheep. Fluffy, white, with bits of green seeping through everywhere. It was no use – I had to ring for a nurse.
The door slung open wide, and an agitated female entered the room. She glanced at Sarah and gasped in horror.
“What are you doing?!”
“Er, I was, I er, well I’m trying to change her nappy, but I er, I’m struggling a bit.”
“Haven’t you got any baby wipes?” She retorted angrily, still too shocked at the sight before her to move any closer.
“Yes, but my sister said to use cotton wool on new-borns and the midwife said to put Vaseline on top of the first few poos to make it come off easily but it’s er…”
Her angry glare silenced me.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’ve never heard of that before. People generally use baby wipes. That’s what they are for! Use your wipes!”
I was about to ask her to help me clean myself and Sarah up, but she was gone in a flash.
With the slam of the door, (yes, for some strange reason, maternity nurses don’t seem to care about disturbing babies) she disappeared. I grabbed the wipes, cleaned ourselves up, and sheepishly crawled back into my bed.
But I lay there wondering why the midwife’s trick hadn’t worked. Did I use the wrong brand of petroleum jelly? Had I not perfected the swipe properly? Was there something wrong with my child?
It was not until my husband arrived in the morning, that the penny dropped.
“Umm…, I think what the midwife meant was, you were supposed to apply the Vaseline before she dirtied her nappy. So that there will be a protective barrier on her skin which will prevent the poo from sticking so hard. Do you see?”
“Ah!” I muttered as I slunk down under my covers in embarrassment. “Of course!”
You may identify with this.
Not necessarily with the exact thing I did, because let’s face it, that is a ridiculous blunder, solely reserved for those like me, who don’t always think things through. But maybe, you are also cringing at a first-time mum mistake?
Other mothers might have got the nappy changing bit right. Perfect swipe, perfect fit. Not too big that it’s falling to their ankles when grandma rushes to pick it up at visiting time – not too tight that the baby’s navel turns blue and the umbilical clamp disappears into its intestines.
But some of the, not-so-maternally-challenged, stare at the screwed-up face of their newly-arrived offspring and think, “Well, I guess it looks like that because we were once chimpanzees.” They ponder on the apparent big bang that occurred in the atmosphere billions of years ago, producing frogs that crawled on their bellies and humans who acted like primates.
You and I have never gawped at a young child and considered that its new-born ugliness is owing to simian origins.
I looked at my sweet daughter and thanked the Creator God for making her. I knew that I had played a minuscule part in her coming into being. Somebody great and amazing formed her heart and made it start beating at only 6 weeks. Other complex organs were formed, together with limbs and multiple cells. This didn’t occur because of a cosmic accident.
So yes, I’m a fool to think that I can clean an infant’s bottom with lashings of petroleum jelly, and you may have done something stupid too. But be encouraged. Many ‘perfect yummy mummies’ believe that their kid’s ancestors were stooping apes.
Ah, now we don’t look so daft after all, do we?
