I remember vividly the first time my husband ever changed a diaper. We were visiting my sister and brother in law who had a beautiful new baby girl. As we planned to start a family in the near future, I encouraged my husband to help his brother in law change the baby’s diaper, as he’d never done this before.

Well, you probably know where this one is going.

Not only did the little Miss do more than pee, but she decided to partake in that activity after the diaper was off– all over the nursery, changing table, herself, my brother in law, and my husband. As a novice at baby diapering, I’m pretty sure my husband was about to be sick after witnessing the whole ordeal.

At some point when we become parents we all deal with the inevitable “poopsplosion”. This could be in the car seat, while baby is sleeping, and honestly — probably a few times on your lap. Babies poop. And they poop a lot.

There are not many things you can do to avoid this phenomenon, unless you have a paid, live-in nanny and housekeeper to clean up the messes you deem unsavory. I don’t have any of those services on hand, and I’m guessing most of you don’t, either! As a parent, you just have to plan on being knee-deep in it sometimes because you just love your child that much.

Because of the possible messes involved, when we made the decision to cloth diaper our first child most people we told thought we were nuts. We were asked many questions, like “Wow, do you realize how gross that will be to handle? or But do you realize there will be poop in your washing machine?”

I try to politely answer those people in the kindest way possible, but in the back of my head it just doesn’t make sense to me. If you can find me a parent who has never accidentally gotten poop on themselves (and realized it then, or hours later, more disgustingly!) or never put a soiled item into their washing machine to be cleaned, then please, direct me to that person. If that is possible I must be doing something completely wrong.

Modern cloth diapering can be extremely easy and in our case has proved to be much less prone to poopsplosions than our use of disposables for daycare or grandparents. For a newborn taking only breastmilk or formula, there is often no need to rinse the diapers of solid material prior to a wash. And, with new equipment such as a diaper sprayer and the Spray Pal device, you don’t even have to touch the diapers of an older baby to rinse them.

If you’re on the fence on whether cloth diapering is a possibility for your new (or older) child and your family, I’d recommend giving it a shot. But, if your only hesitation is that you’ll have to deal with soiled diapers, you may consider that nanny and maid — regardless of the diapering style you choose!

What do you think of cloth diapers? Would you use them?

We’ve all been there: Your baby poops at a pretty inconvenient time and you cross your fingers, hoping no one around you notices before you can find the nearest ladies’ room with a changing table. Well, for Nichole Hakimian, someone did notice, and it got her kicked off a public bus in Seattle, she says.

Hakimian was taking her one-year-old son to a doctor’s appointment for an intestinal illness, and was told by the public bus driver she had to get off because of the smell of her son’s dirty diaper.

“He had just pooped in his diaper as soon as I got on, because he was having diarrhea,” Hakimian told KOMO News. “And right after that, she told me I had to get off the bus.”

“She says, ‘Your baby — he smells really bad, and it’s not fair that we all have to smell that,”‘ she said. “I said, ‘My son is sick. I’m taking him to a doctor’s appointment.”

The driver let Hakimian and her son off the bus about a half mile away from her son’s doctor’s office.

To me, there are two ways to look at this story — maybe the bus driver was being insensitive and mean, or maybe she was concerned about the health of her bus riders. What do you think?

Is a smelly diaper cause for getting kicked off a bus, or did the bus driver cross the line?

Plus, more from The Bump:

Diarrhea in Babies

Top 10 Diaper Bags

How to Pack Your Diaper Bag

Gross headline, I know, but it’s not what you think. This article has nothing to do with my personal bathroom habits. It actually has nothing to do with bathrooms at all, come to think of it. But it does have to do with, well, doo — and our level of familiarity with it that becomes so nonchalant after a few months of parenthood that it’s almost disturbing.

Prior to having a child, if I accidentally got poop on either of my hands in any way, my number one priority at that moment was to, not surprisingly, immediately wash the poop off. You carry this natural habit over with you into your first month or so of parenthood, but you soon realize that it’s simply not feasible. When an ill-fitting diaper meets a jam-packed baby colon, a perfect storm of poo ensues, and there’s almost no way to clean up the biohazard without getting down and dirty. If you stopped to wash off every time you got a smear or smattering of your kid’s present on your hand or arm, changing a diaper would take a half hour.

This isn’t to say that you’ll end up walking around all morning looking like a brown Jackson Pollock painting, it’s just to say that you probably only wash yourself off with soap and water well after your child has been changed, dressed and placed somewhere safe for the moment. Those are three things that you did with poop on you and you didn’t bat an eyelash.

Me? Poop’s never phased me. I lived in a fraternity house in college with plumbing that may or may not have worked for much of my time in residence. And I’ve never understood squeamishness when it came to changing dirty diapers. Yes, they don’t smell like a perfectly smoked bratwurst at a tailgate, but they’re not going to kill you.

In fact, nearly every day, before I go to work, the first three things I do involve number twos (and no, I’m still not referring to my own). I change my daughter (almost always wakes up with a fresh one), put her in the stroller to walk my Labrador (never fails to have something cooking for me to deposit on a neighbor’s lawn) and on some days, even though I loathe having a cat, I change the litter for my wife because I’m a tremendous husband. That means I handle feces from three different species each morning before the “single” version of me would have even gotten out of bed.

Does it bother me? I guess I’d rather not start my day picking up different deuces from different animals and putting them in different bags for disposal, but it’s part of my routine now. One day, when the cat’s gone (it’s pretty old, so soon) and the kid’s potty trained, it’ll be back to just me and my dog and his one single bag full of bowel movement. At that point, I won’t miss the trio of turds I start my days with now, but I’ll look back and know that I performed my doody duty with honor and distinction.

What has surprised you most about life as a new parent?

Hello Bumpies! I am super excited about my first guest blog post. My name is Lindsey and I’m a SAHM to my ten month old son, Harry. When I’m not chasing after him I blog over at The Accidental Wallflower.

I thought I’d start out by blogging about something I’m really passionate about: cloth diapering!

Modern cloth diapers have been gaining momentum in the past few years and keep getting more popular. We thought about cloth diapering while I was pregnant but didn’t take the plunge until Harry was five months old  and some fellow Bumpies encouraged me to. I’ll admit it was a little rocky at first. There are so many different types of cloth diapers it took us about a month to find a system that worked for us.

Why are cloth diapers becoming so popular? Well, to start they are nothing like the cloth diapers our grandparents used. Diaper pins have been replaced with Velcro and snaps and breathable PUL (polyurethane laminate) material has taken the place of those awful plastic pants. Today’s cloth diapers work just like disposables, except they get thrown in the laundry instead of the trash. A full stash of reusable diapers will set you back anywhere from $200-500, a fraction of what disposables cost over the years. Cloth diapers aren’t full of chemicals like disposables and they produce a much smaller carbon footprint than their throwaway counterparts. Plus, they come in a wide variety of cute colors and prints.

A lot of new parents feel overwhelmed at the prospect of cloth diapering. With purchasing 20+ diapers at once, figuring out a laundry routine that works and the general stress that comes with being new parents, many moms and dads are hesitant to try them out. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Cloth diapering isn’t an all or nothing thing. I think everyone should try it out on a part-time basis at first. We started out by using four diapers a day. Gradually we worked up to keeping them on him full-time.

If you’re really curious about cloth diapering your baby, look in to a diaper trial. It’s the least stressful way of cutting that disposable diaper umbilical cord. With trials you get to try a few different styles with nearly no financial risk. If you don’t like the diapers, return them and get most of your money back. Jillian’s Drawers and Kelly’s Closet are two popular choices for diaper trials, but there are a bunch of different companies that offer similar programs.

If you have more cloth diaper questions, The Bump’s cloth diaper forum is a great resource. There are so many knowledgeable ladies on there just waiting to answer any questions you might have.

What kind of diapers do you use for your baby? Why do you like them best?

Huggies plans to update its advertising campaign after it angered some dads. The campaign was called “Dad Test” and it promised that the diapers were durable and easy enough to use for clueless dads. According to The Washington Post, dad bloggers complained to the company and one dad even launched a petition called, “We’re Dads, Huggies. Not Dummies.” It had more than a thousand signatures.

The revamped ads have new images of confident fathers carrying their babies, instead of showing struggling dads. The company said it was never their intention to promote the stereotype of dumb dads, but it was aimed at showing real-life situations. Huggies even sent representatives to the Dad 2.0 Summit in Austin, Texas last weekend to talk to dad bloggers and apologize for the mistake.

Did you see the original ads? How involved is your partner in caring for your baby? Was he offended by the campaign?