Dirty Protest

All of those infernal parenting books hardly agree on anything. Book one tells us to always go to a crying baby, book two suggests leaving a baby to cry, while book three swears by soundproofing your airing cupboard and keeping baby in there for 23 and a half hours a day with only a pay-as-you-go mobile and a list of nearby Chinese takeaways (I may have made that last one up).

However, if there's one thing all the approaches more or less support, it's the importance of getting baby into some kind of routine. What this routine should actually be is anyone's guess. But we're at least trying to do a few of the same things in the same order at about the same time every day, in the hope G will sleep a bit more regularly and our currently chaotic lives will become a bit more predictable. One of these is, when Mrs J is getting ready to feed her, I'll take G to the nappy-change station (as shown in the picture) and quickly sort her out with a new one.

I did this when G woke up and started squirming at about 3 o'clock this morning. Her nappy was wet but otherwise clean. Typically, it wasn't until after I'd put the new one on and done her clothes back up that I heard the dreaded baby-filling-nappy sound. It's a bit like that feeling you get in cricket, when a batsman hears his stumps being knocked over behind him. Only squelchier, obviously.

Later on in the morning it was feed time again, and so it was nappy change time again. Once more G was damp yet clean. But this time I didn't even get the chance to do the new nappy up before I heard that familiar noise again. Sure enough, a torrent of yellowy stuff came firing out all over the new nappy, the changing mat and most of my right arm. It's no trouble to clean it all up again, even if you've not had much sleep and you've got a screaming baby to contend with. But next time I have a ham sandwich, I think I'll give the mustard a miss.