Boo's Bad Bum

Advent Choc 6 = a reindeer

Constipated carnage. 

Betty poos on average thrice daily (I wish). She is one seriously regular Dumpette. You can pretty much set your watch by the thick seeded mustard that she noisily yet proudly excretes. So when her weary nappy was blessed by a whole afternoon, evening and night without even a whiff of a Betty bum squirt, we panicked. Then, after spending the WHOLE NEXT DAY carefully studying each nappy for any scribble, trace, speck or dot of do-do, the panic reached fever pitch.

The internet was scoured. Relatives were rung. NHS Direct even threw in their two-penneth (well, £7.40th if you take the time to check the call charges).

"Mum needs more water."

"Rub baby's tummy in a clockwise direction." 

"Give her another 24 hours." 

"Give baby boiled, cooled water."

"Wash her bum with a cold damp cloth."

"A stitch in time saves nine."

We decided to wait until the morning. If no donkey choker had surfaced by then, we would take Betty to the doctors. 

Picture the scene. 

It's 2.30am. You have been breastfeeding a newborn child twenty four hours a day for the last eleven weeks. Your sleep deprived mind is alerted to some need of said newborn by a piercing scream in the cold December night. You sluggishly exit the inviting sanctuary of your bed and shuffle blinkingly towards the cot of the distressed babe. Grasping her tiny, helpless body, you raise her from the crib and traverse back across the room, stumbling nakedly over discarded shoes and squeaky toys, muttering a flourish of profanities under your unsavoury breath. Slumping down on the edge of your 'God those covers badly need changing' bed, you present the infant with a milk swollen mammary. Then.

A rumble.

A growl.  

Distant thunder?

A vibration.

Then THE eruption. And a terrifying, red hot realisation.

Saturated, seeping pyjamas. Spattered breasts. Soaked crotch. Sullied carpet. Soiled, stained bedding. 

I dragged my exhausted, horrified, defaced shell of humanity to the bathroom. Resigned, I flicked on the light to survey the abuse under wincingly honest lighting.  

It really, actually DID hit the fan.