The Case of The Exploding Diaper

Adik was down with a fever over the weekend. On Friday he woke up crying away with a fever. The whole day the fever was up and down, as it normally would be, but he was generally quite active.

Then on Saturday morning he woke up a bit earlier than normal, around 6:30am, and was again very hot. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hold down his breakfast. I just gave him the paracetamol anyway and then put him back to bed as he was all floppy and lethargic. Basically, whatever little bit he ate on Saturday came right back out, shall we say, from both ends. And all he wanted to do was sleep. He must have caught a stomach bug.

Needless to say he went to bed that night without dinner because his tired little body just wanted to rest! 2 middle-of-the-night sessions of drinking water and having some biscuits made it through his system by early the next morning, causing him to e-x-p-L-O-D-E in his diaper.

Bear in mind I haven’t done this cleaning of butts in the middle of the night for a long time. When he woke up very feverish at 7am, it really did feel like the middle of the night for me.

By about 10:30am, he was very whiny and fussy, very unlike him. At one point he even threw down his pacifier – it was that bad! We took him to the Emergency Room at the nearby hospital just in case it was anything more serious.

The rest of the day for Adik was spent either sleeping, or going to sleep, or being cranky because he wasn’t asleep. You’d be forgiven for thinking that gave me a nice break – seeing as Adik refused to be with anyone else and would scream when I tried to pass him off – but because of his illness, his sleep was very restless and interrupted. I ended up having to put him back to sleep every half hour or so.

Sunday night was similar to Saturday night, and lo and behold, Monday morning was similar to Sunday morning with The Case of The Exploding Diaper. I know this routine now: Strip Adik, wash him off thoroughly, then do it again, then a quick bath, then a fresh clean diaper plus clothes and finally pass him off kicking and screaming. Next up: Remove soiled sheets, soak Adik’s soiled pyjamas, sheets and mattress cover.

Thankfully, throughout Monday he started eating again almost like normal and was actually relatively cheerful. He still had bouts of whininess and crankiness, probably still some discomfort, but obviously on the mend.

I, on the other hand, may have caught what Adik had.

At least I won’t have the problem of exploding diapers.