Bad mothering

So this is my trivial issue for the week: poopy diapers. They say in all the books to change a poopy diaper immediately. And, well, duh. Right? So if it's in the middle of the night, and the diaper is a little wet, it's okay to let the child continue sleeping. But if it's poopy, it's got to be changed.

But, the thing is, Anna's diaper is always poopy. Really. I mean, she poops like every 3 minutes. At least it seems like it. Changing her diaper is like shoveling your sidewalk in the middle of a blizzard. It comes in tiny little amounts sometimes, and pooping could take her like an hour. And sometimes when she's in the middle of a poop-a-thon, you think she's done, but she's not. So there you are, on the changing table, and she poops. Sometimes it's on the table, which I secretly prefer, and sometimes it's all over the brand new diaper you just slipped under her bottom. And I just hate it when she dirties a fresh diaper. I don't know why. I mean, it's there to be pooped on, right? Whether she poops on it now or an hour from now, who cares? But I just can't stand wasting things. I like to reuse everything, from cloth napkins to pickle jars. Hell, I wash and reuse disposable plates. I don't like to contribute unnecessarily to landfills. (So why am I using disposable diapers, you might ask?? We are planning on using half and half--cloth at home and disposable when out and about. I haven't started using the cloth ones yet because I only have 6 and as of right now, Anna could dirty those 6 diapers in 2 or 3 hours. I'm waiting for this magical change at 1-2 months old when she will suddenly only poop about once a day.) Back to the point: it's hard to keep a clean diaper on her. And when you are changing her, and she poops on the new diaper before you even get it on her, and you throw it away and put another clean one on, 9 times out of 10 she poops in the newest one within 5 minutes.

So this leads to my bad mothering. True confession: sometimes when she poops on the new diaper before I have even opened up the little tabs, I put it on her anyways. If it's just a little bit of poop, and I can wipe most of the solid(ish) stuff up, I slap it right on. I can't see throwing it away when it's just going to get much, much poopier in a very short time.

And this makes me feel like a terrible, sick, demented mother. Who purposely puts an already poopy diaper on her baby?! But the guilt I feel about doing this to her is obviously less motivating than the agony of throwing away more diapers than necessary.

And as long as I'm confessing these things, I might as well share this. Often when I first hear her poop, I know (or at least assume) that more is coming. So I wait, and continue what I'm doing, or continue feeding her, and then I remember like 2 hours later that she was poopy. And then she gets a clean diaper. Ew. I really am a terrible mommy when it comes to poop. But I think I'm a good mommy in many other ways, so I'm not going to feel too badly about it, I guess.