Diaper Sizes

Baby skipped a diaper size. Granted, she is growing bigger and bigger every day, but this wasn't due to her growth. Oh no, it was due to me being a new mommy and not knowing any better.

The other day I went over to a friend's house with Baby. Of course I had to change Baby when we were there, so I did it on the floor in front of my friend. My friend is the mother of three wonderful children and has taken care of other babies from time to time. I tend to trust her judgment when it comes to kids, and ask her advice on thins as well. As she saw me change Baby, she commented that the diapers Baby was wearing were too small, and showed me how she could tell.

Why didn't I learn this in my baby care class? Or even my birthing class (we covered baby care in that one, too)? Now that I think about it, nobody even showed us how to put a diaper on a baby. The focus was more on swaddling. I think they were assuming everyone already knew how to put a diaper on. I think that should have been covered, because you just never know.

I used to babysit when I was younger. A lot. I have changed countless diapers in my time, on different sized children. It wasn't that hard, and I had no problem doing it. All the items I needed were given to me and I just went from there. I never had to figure out the specific size that went on the child. It was provided for me.

Now faced with the challenge of correctly sizing my child, I was at a loss. I was going by the weight guidelines on the diaper itself. Did you know that those overlap? So technically a child can fit into two sizes at once. How do I know which one to uses?

My friend kindly pointed out that it's not necessarily the weight, but the fit of the diaper. It needs to stretch wide enough across Baby's tummy so that the flaps on the front of the diaper can meet the back of the diaper. Hopefully that makes sense. I did not know that. I had heard somewhere that it needed to go up to Baby's belly button, but that was it. That explains why most of Baby's diapers had leaked. They were too small.

I went home and switched diapers to the next size up. I told Husband about it, and he told me he could make the other ones fit just fine (I think he was joking.). Now I have a couple of unused smaller diapers. Hopefully the stores will let me take the packages back. Since the switch, I haven't had any more leaky diapers.