The Many Faces of Faeces

Yes, that's right folks, one week into parenthood and I'm writing a poo post.  

In my defence, at one week old I have a limited choice of topics regarding the baby; sleep (lack of), breastfeeding (difficulty of, tentative overcoming of) and poo (lots of).

If you're reading this you've probably got kids.  You know the score.  The initial period of worry when the baby DOESN'T DO POOING.  Will the baby poo?  When will the baby poo?  What happens if he doesn't? All these questions and more race through the mind of the new parent.  Lucky for me, our little bundle didn't keep us waiting too long to render them all moot. 

"Hooray!" we thought, "the boy can poo!"  This reaction is the start of an alarming process.  The conversion of your brain from an organ of rational thought and reason into one which cares an awful lot about poo.  Colour of poo.  Consistency of poo.  Frequency of poo.

All things poo are on the cognitive agenda.  Not only this, they are on the conversational agenda (please tell me that's not just me, I've been talking to my non-parent friends about poo...)

But, for those who don't know already, baby poo is not the same as adult poo.  Where adult poo can be categorised using the Bristol Stool Scale (another claim to fame for my fair city) baby poo can not.

Baby poo is categorised, at least by our midwife, by comparison with various foodstuffs.  

Initial poos, we were told, should have consistency and appearance of Marmite.  Nice.  Amid the worry of the run up to the first poo, with all the aforementioned questions, now I had the added concern that I may never be able to spread delicious yeast extract on my toast again.  The Horror!

Marmite: Not Made of Poo

I needn't have worried.  I didn't have to deal with the Marmite poos (or, more accurately, Meconium. Thanks Google.) because he did all those at night when still in the hospital, with only Mrs L to clean the tar-like substance from him.  So, obviously, I can still enjoy an umami filled breakfast.

Once the Marmite days pass it's onto stage two poo: Nutella.  No worries about falling out of love with that one, I'm not a big fan of Nutella anyway.  Phew.  Just as well, because I did get to do battle with one or two of these.  You know how sticky Nutella is, yes?  Well.  That.  But smeared on the delicate skin of your beautiful newborn.  Delightful.

We don't have Nutella in our house. Apart from in nappies.

Next up, and our current stage: chicken Korma.  I don't have a photo of chicken Korma, because I don't like it.  Similarly, I don't really like chicken Korma poos.  Though I've never actually tried eating the latter.  It's less sticky than Marmite poo.  Less sticky than Nutella poo.  But what it lacks in sticky it more than makes up for with coverage.

Liquid can't flow uphill.  It's against the laws of physics (and, before anyone starts, capillary action doesn't count).  But guess what?  Korma poo is anti-gravity.  It comes out of the same hole as all the other poo types, but instead of staying in the region of said hole it creeps all the way up the baby's back.

Don't worry, I've told NASA.  I anticipate space suits coated in KormPoo (my trade name, hands off) before the end of the decade.  I'll be retiring off this discovery I reckon.

So, yeah, poo.  Sorry.  Hopefully he'll do something else soon...