If you’ve never experienced or heard of a pooplosion then you are in for a treat.
The very first time I experienced it was when Mayah was about 4 months old. When I was feeling up and able to, I decided I was going to the shopping mall at Bluewater, just the two of us – a mother and daughter day out.
I was super excited, got her dressed in a super cute outfit. Bag packed with spare clothes, nappies, wipes, Calpol, etc. – tick. Buggy ready – tick, snacks and water for me – tick. I was read to face the day!
Bright eyed and bushy tailed, I drove to bluewater – all the parent and child parking spaces were full, great *eye roll*. Managed to find somewhere else to park, it was quite tight and took me ages to set up the buggy. I had practised a few times before so not sure why it took longer than usual – probably because it was a cold windy day and there was the panic of people walking past seeing I didn’t know what I was doing.
After a lot of fiddling, I managed to set it up – Mayah was sitting there sucking on her dummy. She had been screaming her eyes out in the car during the drive – I thought driving was meant to help them fall asleep? Thank God for the dummy, I managed to slip it into her mouth while driving. Dangerous I know, but you try driving with a screaming baby in the car (don’t judge me!).
Feeling positive and looking cute (and Mayah too ;)), we went into the shopping mall. I was happy, finally. We went from shop to shop, all was well with the universe.
30mins later, Mayah starts crying – she needs her feed. Popped into John Lewis’ mother and baby room to feed her. Spent about 45mins breast feeding and burping *sigh*, day going well so far. Once she was well fed and happy, I put her back in her chair. “Next stop, somewhere nice for lunch”, I said to Mayah. All of a sudden I heard it, it was loud and bubbly and smelly. I could see it all over Mayah’s face – she had done a poo and I knew this wasn’t just a poo. This sounded, well, different.
So we headed back into the room, straight to the baby changing section. Mayah had started crying again. I calmly (yeah right) , set up the station. Used the antibacterial wipes to clean the station, then covered it with the disposable paper base they had there. Put Mayah on and started to take off her tights when I realised – there was poo, I mean fresh stinky sticky poo everywhere! I couldn’t believe it, I would have to take off all her clothes, clean her and dress her in new clothes. I just did not need this now. I was also starving and my head was spinning.
Tip: When breastfeeding, you can go from being ok to “you’re so hungry, you’re going to pass out” very quickly. Make sure you have some snacks (healthy ones if you want lol) on you and try to snack just before or while breastfeeding.
By this time, another mum had walked in with her baby and was waiting. I had to do all this quickly. I started to panic (babies can sense when you are anxious, Mayah started to scream). When trying to take off her bodysuit, I was trying my best to take it off without the poo Getting in her hair but she was wriggling so much, it did!
Tip: did you know that you can take your baby’s bodysuit off from the bottom rather than over their head? After the pooplosion experience with Mayah, I did some google reading and realised other mums had experienced it and it was called a pooplosion. Someone also posted this tip on the comments section – thank you super mum!!
I managed to change her and dress her in new clothes, all fidgety – I kept looking over to the other mum waiting and apologising, she didn’t say a word just responded with a little forced smile. (I guess she was also frustrated) – I was so flustered.
As soon as I left the room, I went straight to the car park, got in the car and came back home.
First day out with just Mayah & I – horrible. Mayah 1 , mum nil.