It’s impossible not to envy those smooth, competent moms and dads we’ve all seen on the street or at the mall – the kind who can simultaneously collapse a stroller, hold the baby, and carry four shopping bags while looking as put-together as a cover model.
But chances are they weren’t always that perfect. When they were brand-new parents, they too put diapers on the wrong way and wrestled with car seat straps for hours. To help reassure you that every parent makes mistakes (including BabyCenter editors!), we’ve gathered some of our users’ funniest, most poignant stories about life with a newborn. You’re bound to learn a few things from them, or at least enjoy a laugh of recognition
Improv 101
“I was out of the house one day, and I guess we’d run out of diapers, because when I got home, my husband had made one out of a maxi-pad, a dish towel, and the headband I use when I take off my make-up. It worked, but now I make sure that I’m never, ever out of diapers.”
“When my daughter, Leilani, was still very young, I took her on a day trip to visit the women on my husband’s side of the family (her grandmas, great-grandmas, and aunts). I really wanted to leave them with a good impression, but I soon realized I only had one extra diaper in the diaper bag. However, I did have tons of nursing pads, so I slipped one into her diaper. As the day went on, I just changed the pads every time she wet one. They worked great and nobody ever found out!”
– Keala Strahan, Bakersfield, California
Help! My baby is an alien!
“My newborn daughter would spit up occasionally, like all babies, but one day when she was just 3 weeks old, she began to projectile vomit. I swear it shot from her mouth 4 feet across the room. Ironically, I had just watched ‘The Exorcist’ the night before, so I was positive she was possessed. I couldn’t believe a tiny baby could have the ability to do this naturally. Hysterical, I called my parents, the emergency room, and a priest. When I got to the emergency room, the doctor explained it to me, and told me I was probably just overfeeding her. My priest laughed so hard he had to sit down.”
– Katherine Wilson
“I had only been home from the hospital for a couple of days and was just finishing a shower when my husband screamed for me to come to the family room. I ran in and saw our daughter, Abigail, innocently lying on a towel on the floor. My husband jumped up and ran to the bathroom, and I heard him throwing up like he had a horrible flu. He walked out a few minutes later, went into our bedroom, and came out with a gas mask on. He said he had never seen anything like that – Abby’s first poop after the meconium. After that he changed her diaper with his gas mask on.”
– Melissa Skinner, Columbus, Ohio
Operating instructions
“When my first son was born, I knew nothing about giving an infant a bath. When it came time for his first one, I put him into the tub and discovered, to my horror, that I didn’t know how to turn him over. He was so slippery, and his little head flopped all over the place. I was so upset I cried. I couldn’t wash my own baby’s back! He had a very clean front side for the first week until my mother visited. She showed me what to do. The biggest lesson I learned was to ask for help when you need it.”
– Dawn F., Kailua, Hawaii
“Before my son, Justin, was born, I’d only changed girl babies. For the first two weeks of his life, I ended up having to change his whole outfit every time he peed in his diaper. Then one day, desperate, I told my dad about it. He laughed and then went on to tell me that little boys’ penises need to be pointed down every time you change them. We still chuckle about it today.”
– Heather Kuykendall
“My son, Billy, was only about 4 days old when I got up from a nap and found that his dad had taken the nasal aspirator that they give you at the hospital and given it to Billy to use as a pacifier. After I explained what it was, he looked a little sheepish before saying ‘Good thing I rinsed it off first.’”
– Betty Cox, Alexandria, Indiana
Learning the hard way
“I didn’t always put a burp cloth over my shoulder when I picked up my newborn – I figured if I was holding him only for a minute, he wouldn’t spit up. But once, after I laid him down, I found that my back and rear end felt very warm. I didn’t feel anything on the outside of my shorts. But I had overalls on, and my son had spit up inside them all over my shirt and underwear. It was a very enlightening experience, the moral of which is that, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, always put a cloth over your shoulder when holding your little one.”
– Lisa Crocket, Fresno, California
“I learned the hard way to always put a diaper under my new baby girl, Lexi. I had just bathed her, so I wrapped her up in her towel and started walking from the bathroom to her room. I stopped for just a second to say something to my mom, who was visiting, and Lexi let loose! There was a huge puddle on the kitchen floor, and I was pretty soaked too!”
– Michelle Barnhart, Sturgis, Michigan
“The day my son, Mason, was born, my husband did his first-ever diaper change. He was so proud. But when he picked Mason up, our son urinated on him. The little cut-out in the front of the diaper for the belly button stump was too far down, and Mason’s little pee-pee was sticking out. My husband was so embarrassed.”
– Brandi Nickerson, Phoenix, Arizona
Bye-bye, brain
“In the first couple weeks after I had Zach, I was absolutely exhausted and trying to recover from a c-section. I was taking Percoset for the pain, which made me tired and a little loopy. So, one night it came time for his 2 a.m. feeding. I always change his diaper before feeding him, so I followed my routine as usual and went back to sleep. But when I got up the next morning to change him, I noticed he was wearing two diapers instead of one – his dirty one from the middle of the night and a clean one right on top of it.”
– Amy Smith
“When my son was 5 days old, I decided to take him to the store. I was really nervous because it was my first time taking him out by myself. After spending about an hour getting ready, we left the house. I locked the front door of my house and put my key chain in my pocket. Minutes later, I buckled my son into his car seat and closed the car door. I went around to the driver’s side door, and the door was locked. I went back around to the passenger side, and it was locked too. I sat on the hood of my car crying for about an hour (while my baby slept in his car seat), thinking about what a terrible mother I would be. Then I remembered that the keys were in my pocket! I unlocked the car door and took the baby back into the house. When my husband came home and I told him about it – still crying – he laughed and thought it was cute.”
– Jennifer Hardin, Gainesville, Georgia
Somehow they survive …
“A few weeks after my son, Weston, was born, we hit an unusually warm spell in early October, so I decided to put a fan in his window to keep him cool. When I went to check on him during his nap, I found him surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, and I saw that I’d forgotten to put the window screen back in when I installed the fan. So then, in my sleepless state, I sprayed him with bug repellent from head to toe, including his hands, which he immediately used to rub his eyes. Already cranky because I’d woken him up, he now started screaming because of the spray in his eyes. I was so panicked that I never even thought of just wiping him off with a damp washcloth. Instead, I put his poor little head under the running faucet. But that just made him cry harder: It was bad enough being woken up and getting bug spray in his eyes, but now his mother was drowning him in the sink. It ended up with me on the kitchen floor crying and my poor husband coming in and trying to console both me and the baby, who at this point has, amazingly, survived his first two years.”
– Liz, Fox River Grove, Illinois
