Being a new mom is all about trial and error. This story begins with a battle…a battle between a red-faced, hot-tempered mom and an organic crib mattress. Anyone who has an infant with bodily fluids knows how fun it is to rip off the crib sheets at 3am in the pitch dark, while praying not to stimulate that already flailing bundle of joy. Seriously, this process makes my blood boil and my husband is smart enough to flee the area when the time comes to change the bedding for the weekly wash.
So today, sans husband, while I was ripping off bumper pads, pinning up the bed skirt, yelling at the cats to get out of my way while wrestling the mattress, I stopped and said, “There has to be a better way!!” In fact, I better find it before my lo starts developing his language skills or god knows what his first words might be! So I stopped right there and pulled out my trusty ipad and began an online search. I mean, I couldn’t be the only one who HATES this process with a passion and considering how often it must be done I thought maybe there was some sort of invention that exists to improve the lives of mothers everywhere. As it turns out, you can purchase sheets that zipper off…. clever I thought, although not an investment I was willing to make just yet. Another suggestion was to make a sandwich by layering several waterproof mattress pads with crib sheets so when a sheet was soiled, you would rip it off along with the waterproof pad, only to find another layer of fresh sheets underneath and ready to go! This sounded logical but there was one problem. I didn’t have several waterproof mattress covers, which leads me to another story.
It’s funny to think back on conversations I had while pregnant with my equally naive soon-to-be-mom friends, discussing various ideas on improving traditional methods for everyday parenting. After all, the best parents are the one’s without kids, right? Well, specifically I remember telling one friend that I planned to skip the waterproof crib mattress all together and invest in 4 or 5 organic cotton waterproof pads instead. That way I could lay it on top of the crib sheet under the baby and virtually never have to change to the crib sheet. If you think that’s genius, I could also use them in the playpen, in the bassinet and on the couch and having several allowed me to have some in the wash while others were in use. Well, Einstein would be quite disappointed in me. Although this worked well when lo was a newborn, as soon as those little arms and hands started moving, he was constantly pulling at the edges of the pad and bringing it to his mouth so I had to remove them because I feared it would be a suffocation hazard. Next, I tried putting this waterproof pad in the center of the crib under the crib sheet. This worked for a little while, but now that my lo has started rolling over and is desperately trying to crawl, he engages in crib Pilates at least twice a day and is often nowhere near the center of the crib post-workout. After discovering a stain on the beautifully soft organic cotton mattress, I was in the line up at toys r us with a full waterproof mattress cover faster than you could say “diarrhea”!
So, after several errors, this leads me to my current trial which involves one full waterproof crib mattress followed by 4 heavy-duty layers of combined crib sheets and organic cotton waterproof pads! I’m a go big or go home kinda gal. So, after assembling the many layers, tying the bumper pads on, re-attaching our sleep sheep and magic aquarium I stopped in a panic..WAIT! Is my angel care monitor motion sensor going to work through all this padding!!??
Well, one of the reasons I named my blog “Miss Conception” is because I knew that I would have to learn the hard way after having years of misconceptions about what things would really be like as a parent. It really is all about trial and error.
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