Nappy changing hell - heeeelp!

[Sariska]

My not-yet 9 month old DS absolutely hates having his nappy changed. He screams, writhes and wriggles, flips over onto his tummy and crawls away as fast as he can - every time. I can normally whip off the old one but trying to clean him is a nightmare. I won't spell it out but let's just say we are doing a lot of extra laundry and floor cleaning in our house right now. And as for trying to put the new one on - well! I've tried putting it on with him standing up, lying on his front, pinned between my legs etc etc. No dice. Distracting him with a toy, a song or silly noises also doesn't work. Now, I'm guessing this is not an unusual problem but (naively???) I thought it started a little later. Will he learn to suffer in silence (and relative stillness) soon? (And preferably before Wednesday when he has a hospital appt, which is bound to involve me having to take his nappy off to have him weighed!) Can anyone give me any hope????

Yes they can be little so-n-so's can't they! I've been there three times so far, and I have to say hoisting their legs up by their ankles to get nappies off, wipe and put nappies on usually makes it quite difficult for them to crawl off .

I usually find distracting them with a non-toy works long enough to get them into the ankle-hoisted position. I give my son an empty plastic bottle, a peg, my hairbrush - anything really that is not a toy, toys are sooo boring at this age eh?!!

Good luck!

mmm...mine took 6 months before he was happy to let me do it. I resorted to putting "contraband" in my handbag. Things like a small tin of vaseline, old lipstick, purse (empty but a few pieces of paper) etc. So everytime I wanted to do a nappy change I sat down with the bag and started looking through it. He was far to curious to not to be interested, I would let him have one item and while he was playing with it I did the change.

ditto the handbag trick! Make up bag usually works too

good advice. he's even beginning to tire of my mobile phone

We use a mat with a harness (Rabbitts) which helps a bit with the wriggling (though our son is a bit smaller, 6.5 months).

My husband used to complain that he was the "only one" who could do a nappy change on his own. We had a strap, and some days a lot of crying if it had to be a one-man-job. Maybe this is one of the reasons we started potty training at 14 months -- no pooey nappies since 15 months old.

Some good ideas here - thanks. I'm going to kit out an old handbag and see how we go. Failing that I'll have to think about a harness - and look forward to potty training.

(Interesting what you say Ches: my DS is definitely worse if it is me changing him. DH has a bit less trouble. Perhaps my napping changing technique is deficient in some way....)

Nonononono -- it's that they're little so-and-sos and their behaviour is inversely proportional to how involved you were in their conception and gestation. My DS used to lie on the changing mat at nursery like an angel.