To ask how you deal with nappies and potty training etc if you're squeamish?!

[7upluck]

I know I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but I promise I'm not being goady!

Pregnant with my first and I'm already worried about how I'll cope with changing nappies, potty training, wiping bums etc. I am honestly the most squeamish person, I can't abide my own bodily fluids let alone someone else's.

It's something that no one talks about because it seems everyone else doesn't mind. I was out for lunch with a friend yesterday and there was a little girl on the table next to us with her mum and dad. She announced very loudly 'Mummy, I need a poo.' (which when I was eating and am suffering from nausea anyway left me feeling a bit

No one WANTS to do it or loves it but it's a part of being a parent.

Sorry but you need to get over it.

I mean this nicely but you need to get over yourself.

And you will because the alternative is leaving a child sitting in their own poo/urine/vomit and your instincts as a mother just don’t allow for that. It’s the same as feeding - you just want your baby fed (breast or bottle) and won’t have them go hungry. It’s instinct

Doesn’t allow**

You honestly just get on with it, you won't like it but you will manage. Im super squeamish but it just seems different when it's your kid

It's actually the easiest part of early parenting. It's not fun exactly but it isn't exhausting or confusing. You do it so often you get used to it very quickly. Your wish for your child to be clean and dry will be far stronger than any feelings of "ew".

And actually, change time is good bonding time. You can sing songs and be silly with your baby beaming up at you.

I was really squeamish (still am with other people’s babies!) but after a couple of weeks I was just used to it.

It’s weird, it honestly doesn’t bother me at all now. You’ll be fine .

I remember my mum saying she worried about this before she had me, but she said that once the baby comes along you love them so much and they’re so small and helpless that you just want to make sure they’re comfortable and happy and clean and so it’s just not as gross as you expect.
Also, the poos for the first few months are milk only and so they’re just not bad, they’re not doing massive logs at that stage.
I never liked vomit (who does?) but when your child just looks so miserable and sad, you just get on with it and deal with it.

It's not like it's someone else, it feels like it's your own your cleaning up.

In a few months you will push your bsby out of your vagina, along with a load of other blood and fluid. It will be very messy. Either that, or you will have the baby cut out of you, which is a different kind of messy. Either way, you will continue to bleed from your vagina for several days/weeks following birth, whilst producing milk from your breasts. Sometimes you will wake up covered in leaked breast milk, sometimes the milk will leak out when you're out at the shops or whatever.
After all that, you'll feel much less squesmish about a bit of baby poo.

I am not squeamish at all with my own kids but I would gag if I had to change a baby’s nappy that wasn’t my own!

If you breastfeed, it's pretty inoffensive stuff at first. Yellow and hardly even smells.

It’s like wiping your own bum, they’re an extension of you really. Does wiping your own bum make you feel sick?

@DrSbaitso

If you breastfeed, it's pretty inoffensive stuff at first. Yellow and hardly even smells.

Well, apart from the VERY first few...

To use an old saying, it's different when it's your own. Other people's kids are annoying, loud and quite often disgusting. Your own are all those things too but somehow you'll be able to see past that and get on with it.

Other people’s children’s nappies are disgusting but my own children’s are absolutely delightful.

It really is different with your own baby.

I was a bit like you but managed fine with my own. I looked after my friends little boy while she went to an interview & he needed his nappy changing & I had to fight the urge to gag so much.

You also get very used to your own child saying they have done/need a poo that it's just another job to do.

You're going to have to get used to it because no one is going to wipe your child's arse for you, or clean up for you after they've been sick.

Mine still occasionally announce “I’m off for a poo now” and they’re 9 and 11

Definitely different when it's your own but tbh you've got no choice but to just get on with it.

@storminabuttercup

You honestly just get on with it, you won't like it but you will manage. Im super squeamish but it just seems different when it's your kid

Agree with this.

The cuteness and love seems to take over

@sharksarecool

In a few months you will push your bsby out of your vagina, along with a load of other blood and fluid. It will be very messy. Either that, or you will have the baby cut out of you, which is a different kind of messy. Either way, you will continue to bleed from your vagina for several days/weeks following birth, whilst producing milk from your breasts. Sometimes you will wake up covered in leaked breast milk, sometimes the milk will leak out when you're out at the shops or whatever. After all that, you'll feel much less squesmish about a bit of baby poo.

This is accurate I’m afraid. You will get over it because you have to.

Unless you are a man of course in which case you can choose not to get over it and make your partner do all the less pleasant bits of parenting while you take photos of your child to post on Facebook as father of the year .

I really struggle with vomit - the look makes me cringe and the smell makes me gag. If DH happens to be around when DD's sick, he deals with it. But if he isn't, it's just tough isn't it. I have to get on with it.

You get eased into it. Newborn poo isn't too unpleasant or smelly generally as they only drink milk, especially if they are exclusively breastfed. It's only when they start solids at 6 months that it starts getting more like adult poo - and even then it's gradual, as the move to solids is gradual too.

But yeah, I mean, generally poo is disgusting, but you've got no choice, You just have to hold your breath, grit your teeth and do it sometimes. What do you do if you have a bit of diarrhoea yourself? Presumably you just grit your teeth and get on with it? It's the same when you've got a baby.

Also though, it's important to note that cleaning up your baby's poo is only as disgusting as cleaning up your own poo. It's not as bad as cleaning up a stranger's poo.

Disgust is partly learned but partly instinctive, and it's an evolutionary function that protects us from diseases. Thus we are disgusted by the body fluids of strangers, excrement, rotten food etc. because they can all cause us to become very ill. But there are certain situations where our disgust reaction is overridden. One example is sex with a partner we are attracted to, in order to allow us to reproduce. Caring for our own babies is another of those situations. When you've carried a person inside your body for 9 months, then birth them in a pool of your own blood and mucus and then they suck milk out of your breasts straight away, physical boundaries are basically non-existent between you and the baby for a very long time, which means you don't have the same disgust reaction as you'd have to a stranger's bodily fluids. Which again, isn't to say cleaning up their poo is pleasant, but if you can wipe your own bum you can wipe your own baby's bum too!

hold your nose - makes a huge difference. If you can't smell whatever it is, you're less likely to get nauseous and keep mints in your pocket for the times when you can't help but smell it

I am a sympathetic vomiter and this really helped!

@Ozgirl75

Mine still occasionally announce “I’m off for a poo now” and they’re 9 and 11

Same here!