We’re so proud. This week Fergus pooed his first words. If you’re not keen on poo stories, you should probably skip this post. It mostly contains poo jokes and GPDs (Graphic Poo Details).

Goodbye, MSI! Never again, PWM!

This week we made the change from disposable nappies to modern cloth nappies (Green Kids), and we’re loving it. I’m the ultimate in lazy: if it’s less hassle, I’ll give it a shot. This means we’ve been using throw-away nappies, because, despite being greenly inclined, I kind of assumed they’d be easier. How wrong I was!

Using major brand disposables we’ve had constant trouble with leakage disasters, including major MSIs (Mustard Spouting Incidents) and PWMs (Public Wardrobe Malfunctions).

At the time I wondered: What’s the point of a nappy if you can’t count on it to work? What’s the point of a nappy if you live in constant fear? I couldn’t leave the house without packing spare everything and at least two changes of clothes; one time we pooed through four different outfits in 24 hours.

Use cloth: save on washing!

So far, touch wood, these new nappies are doing a much better job of containing the mess and keeping Fergus’ skin clean and happy. And…no poo leaks! This means we can focus on washing his *nappies* instead of his clothes, my clothes, his car seat cover, my sister’s couch. And isn’t that the way things should be?

These nappies are super-easy to clean and dry  (it helps when it’s 40 degrees centigrade outside), plus they look fabulous, they’re one-size-fits-all (they’ll last him ages), and I feel great about slashing the number of disposables we use. YAY all round!

And the funniest bit?

How do we know these nappies work? We unwittingly put them to the ultimate test.

Attack of the poo queue

Now he’s a bit older with a digestive system to match, Fergus usually poos about once a day. This is great because I can pretty much relax once he’s finished doing the pooing. HOWEVER, for the last few days there hasn’t been much action in the poo department. Something, and we knew not what, had caused a slow down, a back up, a poo queue.

As each hour passed poo-less, we grew more and more worried. How would the new nappies cope? Could cloth really pass the test when the poo-nami came?

We’d put him to bed each night hoping that the evening might bring some relief. And each morning we’d wake pooless and wondering. When would it come? How much longer did we have?

Well, our questions were answered this morning.

It came, it soaked, it was conquered

The poo-nami splashed down around 10AM this morning. Days worth, all at once. And the cloth nappy swallowed it whole, without fuss, without hesitation. Not a mustard trickle in sight. Yay nappy!

But what was in sight?

Amongst the debris, we spotted tiny undigested bits of something. The source of the go-slow.

Turns out that Fergus had swallowed bits of magazine he’d been chewing on. On closer inspection, we could actually make out letters, read bits of the article. Fergus had pooed his first words! We were so proud!

Hopefully things will return to normal now. I’ll certainly think twice before letting him chow down on trashy printed material in the future. Next time I’ll make sure he eats something more educational. 🙂