Over on TheMammyBlog Facebook page I unwittingly blew everyone’s mind when I berated myself for getting the ‘night nappies’ instead of the ‘day nappies’, while in a rush. I’d always thought the green nappies with the sleeping bunny on the moon and the ‘12 hours of dryness’ on the front of the pack, were for night time wear and the white ones were for daytime. Now I have to add, it was about 3 months into motherhood before I even realised there was a difference in the of colour the 2 nappies and I can remember sharply criticising myself as a complete ejit for not copping it sooner.
Turns out that assumption blew everyone’s mind! Turns out loads of mammies were just as unaware as I was that there was a difference in these nappies. And it also turns out that there are no official day or night nappies either! Turns out I was berating myself for nothing!
It was hilarious.
But it got me thinking about motherhood in general and the fact that we are all equally mystified by it, no matter how much we think we know. We’re all just muddling through and learning as we go and often there are things that we think are perfectly obvious and end up giving ourselves a hard time for not knowing it.
Well I say enough of that.
We’re all equally clueless at the start of parenthood and as I’m realising, that doesn’t necessarily change as your child gets older. Every stage is different and every stage has its own challenges and learnings. Only by talking to each other and helping each other can we hope to learn.
For example, I can remember a friend of mine chatting about her nephew and laughing that her mother couldn’t figure out why her little boy’s nappy kept getting wet all the time. My friend laughed and said ‘well you have to make sure his piddler is always pointing downwards!’
Cue fits of hysterics all round. But a few years later when I had my own baby boy, I always remembered this pearl of wisdom, as I wouldn’t have had a bloody clue if I had been faced with the same scenario!
So talk to each other, pass on your corker of a baby hack, keep in mind there is no such thing as a stupid question and remember we are all winging it. Yes even that mum who always looks like she has her shit together… she probably is as baffled by those damn moon nappies as I still am!