How to Prevent Diaper Blowouts (or at least try!)

I’ve got a sweet little story for you today. It involves my first-born and lots and lots of…POOP! Haha.

It was the middle of the night, I was sleeping, and I heard a faint cry in the back of my mind. It got louder and louder until I realized, THAT’S MY BABY! I jumped out of bed and ran into her room. My precious baby girl was hungry and I had the goods. I was still in a daze (THIS is how you can deal with those late-night feedings), but I remember distinctly putting her on the changing table to get ready to change her sweet bottom. I already knew all too well that I needed to be prepared before I opened up that thing. In the week and few days since she was born, she had plenty of accidents to write home about. So I got a newborn diaper out and opened  it up and then got the wipes ready to go.

Here’s where you might want to pay attention.

I unstuck the tabs on the diaper she currently had on, started to pull down the front, and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHH! Out came probably a gallon of poop! I’m not even exaggerating! I didn’t know whether to be grateful it got all over her room or if I should have wished that it had gone up her back instead! The pressure was so incredible, it got all over the door, the floor (hardwood, luckily!), her crib, and even found its way back to the changing table.

I instantly yelled, “OH MY GOSH!” out of sheer shock from what just happened. Did my 1 1/2 week old really just rid herself of that much stuff?

My husband leapt from bed as soon as he heard my cries and ran into our daughter’s room. He thought I had dropped Sofía or something. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to warn him of the poop all over the place, so he slipped the instant he set foot in the room; he only had the crib to keep him from completely falling into the incredible mess. Poor guy!

Then my mom came running (she was sleeping over at our house), and we warned her to stay out of the room for the time being. My poor husband had to tip toe to the bathroom to get himself cleaned up, and I had to figure out how to clean up my baby so none of the poop could get on anything else.

When we got my daughter dressed again, we cleaned up the floor, door, and anything else covered in her poop. Then my mom asked me something, “What did you eat today?” Seriously, Mom, we’re cleaning up poop and that’s what you want to know? I thought.

Then it dawned on me. She wanted to know what I had eaten because maybe it had affected my baby and that is why she had a huge blowout.

“I had a smoothie,” I told her. That’s the only thing I remember eating that day that probably contributed to this lovely mess.

I was changed from that horrid experience. I refer to it fondly as “The Fire Hydrant Blowout.” After that, we rarely saw diaper blowouts happen, because we decided to take control of the situation.

© WavebreakMediaMicro / Dollar Photo Club

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How to Prevent Diaper Blowouts

In order to help other new mamas avoid and/or deal with diaper blowouts, I’d like to impart some wisdom to you. These ideas will help you prevent diaper blowouts or at least make them easier to deal with if they do happen.

1. While breastfeeding, make sure to avoid certain foods during the first few weeks of your baby’s life. Some foods can be very intense for newborns. Apparently, all that fruit in my smoothie was just too much for my baby’s sensitive stomach.
2. Do not use cute layettes that look like the ones below (price tag of $43). The most practical PJs for your baby are the ones with the buttons and/or a zipper in the front. Nobody wants to pull poop over their baby’s head. That just means even more cleanup. And I’m sorry, but why would anybody pay $43 for something their baby will wear 4, maybe 5, times?! 
3. Try out diaper extenders. I had never heard of these until I started researching for this post. One company, Poopsies, makes onesies with a waterproof lining. You can also buy diaper extender pads on Amazon. If you have tried them out, let me know if they worked for you!
4. Use cloth diapers instead of disposable ones. I used cloth diapers on my first baby from the time she was about 4 weeks old until 7 months. Once I started using them, I never dealt with any kind of diaper blowout up the back or even out the sides, and I believe that was due to the cloth diapers. I have been using a combination of cloth and disposable with my second, and I believe there was one time she had a little bit of poop going up her back when she had a cloth diaper on. All of her other blowouts happened with disposables on.
5. Do NOT leave your house without a change of clothing, diapers, and wipes. If you do, and a diaper blowout happens, I’ll pray for  you! (THIS is my story of when I forgot a change of clothing for our daughter)
6. Pull off the onesie the wrong way (that is, down the legs instead of over the head). I didn’t even know you could do this until more recently. It will be so much less mess if you do this. Over the head is just gross!

You can do your best to prevent diaper blowouts, but some kids just have more epic poopy blowouts than others. 😉 That’s why there are ways to deal with them if they do happen.

Do you have any other ways to prevent and/or handle diaper blowouts?

By the way, if you want to save as much money as you can on your disposable diapers, check out THIS post.

Photos of food: Onion, Broccoli, Pineapple, Orange. Photo of layette via.

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Charlee Flaminio

I'm a mom of 3 on a journey to feed my family nourishing foods. Personally, I believe you can cook healthy food and still have time for your loved ones.

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