How to avoid being peed on?

September 25, 2005 10:28 PM

My son pees on me. Have any MetaParents tried the Weeblock or any similar product? Or have other tips for changing a boy baby's diaper without him soaking the area, his parents, and/or himself? We've tried using clean diapers and washcloths as shields with partial success, but we hope we can do better.
posted by escabeche to Health & Fitness (9 answers total)

I can empathize, but unfortunately it may be impossible to describe the method we arrived at after numerous soakings from our son. It involved undoing the dirty diaper, cleaning the boy front and aft, sliding a clean diaper under him before removing the soiled diaper, and then fastening the new one up before he had a chance to take aim and try to soak us. If you achieve perfection with this, you can have the baby covered almost constantly, with only a fraction of a second during which they can (and invariably will) let fly.

For what it's worth, Robert Klein does a very funny routine about going to the Emergency Room after his son peed in his eye. Klein thought he was going to be blinded for life.

Good luck. This too shall pass. (Couldn't resist.)
posted by ghostwriter at 10:52 PM on September 25, 2005

How old is your son? This stage may not last much longer. My son got me the other day, but he's only done this once in the past 2 months or so. It's not like when he was a wee infant.

That being said, we found it really helpful to lay a clean *cloth* diaper over him when he was much smaller. We use cloth diapers all the time and they tend to absorb spraying urine, whereas a disposable tends to deflect it when used as a shield.

You could also get a sense of how often your son urinates. I found this easy to do, since we used cloth diapers. It's probably a little tougher with disposables. However, if you lay your son on a big towel or rubber sheet and watch the clock for an hour, you'll get a sense of how often he goes. And then you can make sure you change him after those times. For example, when my son was 2 months old, I knew I had 20 minutes in between episodes.

Finally, if your son simply wets a diaper, you shouldn't need to busy yourself with wiping. (This is according to the public health and pre-natal classes I attended. Urine is antiseptic.) This means you can do a diaper change very quickly. I always used Ghostwriter's method.
posted by acoutu at 12:39 AM on September 26, 2005

At my last shower, I got a set of Pee Pee Teepees, and while they provided good conversation fodder at the time, they've since proved useless. The dang things won't stay on - I don't know about your son, but mine treats diaper changes as an aerobic activity. I use a combination of the two methods above - a speedy system of exchanging clean for dirty and a folded cloth diaper draped across the groin. We use disposables, but we bought a few packs of cloth diapers to use as burp cloths and found they doubled nicely as pee shields.
posted by bibliowench at 3:41 AM on September 26, 2005

He'll grow out of it. Quite soon. The best thing is to learn to see the funny side until then.
posted by singingfish at 4:35 AM on September 26, 2005

The best thing is to learn to see the funny side until then.

That, I think, is the best advice. At one point or another, you made a funny face or jumped back comically when he did this the first time. You've trained him that if he holds it in and pees on you, you'll start bouncing off the walls like one of the Three Stooges. I've found that if you want to get any child to do anything at age < 3, you'll be best served by physical comedy (i.e. stop crying? run into a door. etc.)br>
The upside of this is that when it comes around time to poddy train him, you really shouldn't have any trouble. You already know that he has discovered the innate skill of "holding it".
posted by thanotopsis at 4:52 AM on September 26, 2005

Don't bother spending money on those gadgets. Just use a washcloth. When you're ready to change the boy, undo the fasteners, fold the top part under him, and put a washcloth down immediately. Babies don't pee a huge volume, so the washcloth is more than able to absorb any spray.
posted by Philbo at 5:14 AM on September 26, 2005

You might consider this.
posted by wsg at 9:12 AM on September 26, 2005

While I'm not a parent, I do work around a lot of kids. Swiftness really seems to be the key. Most often moms are getting sprayed when they are chatting to other people or looking for something or just generally distracted. You really have to cover that up quick. It is very funny to watch parents learn for the first time that babies pee and spit up in any situation.
posted by nadawi at 11:08 AM on September 26, 2005

Nadawi is right. My son always gets me when I'm talking to someone. And then he laughs, as Thano noted.
posted by acoutu at 6:51 PM on September 26, 2005