Mustard is not very appetizing anymore...

If you have breastfed a baby, then you know that breastfed poop looks just like yellow mustard. I had read this description while pregnant with Jax but it didn't really sink in. I guess I didn't realize that the color, consistency, frequency and amount of poop was going to be such a big deal. Well, it is. Poop is one of the focal points of early parenthood. Since having my son I have been known to talk to strangers about my baby's poop, take pictures of poop and even resort to sticking my finger into it to check out the texture (yup! I did that).

One awesome thing about breastfed poop is that it actually doesn't smell that bad. I mean, it's not my favorite perfume (despite the fact that I have likely had some both behind my ears and on the inside of my wrist) but it doesn't smell as bad as other poop. If you've ever smelled a formula fed baby's poop - holy smokes that stuff can be potent! The not so awesome thing about breastfed poop is the consistency. Keeping a nice little turd inside a diaper is easy, keeping a huge explosion of gooey liquid in the diaper.. not so easy! Thankfully I discovered cloth diapers when my son was about 6 months old and  we have had very few blowouts since we switched. Ange has been in cloth since birth and last week we had our first real blowout.

Now I would like to discuss the color of breastfed poop. It's yellow. Mustard yellow. Not a little bit like mustard, not sort of resembling mustard, it looks EXACTLY like mustard. Which is great. Better than nasty brown poop, I think. Until you go to make a salami sandwich. You squirt the mustard all over the bread and for some reason you lose a bit of your appetite. But you can't figure out why, so you finish making the sandwich, pour yourself a nice glass of water and sit down on the couch to eat your lunch in peace while the kids are napping. Then you glance to your left and right there on the couch next to you is a dirty diaper from the pre-nap diaper change. On top of the diaper is the wipe you used to wipe your little darling's butt. And all over that wipe is... mustard... I mean poop! Suddenly you realize why the sandwich tweaked your gag reflex and before you know it, the sandwich is out of the question and you're eating oreos for lunch. This is what happened to me yesterday.

So, yes, breastfed poop has its ups and downs. It's not too smelly and you can keep it contained in a good cloth diaper but don't expect to eat a salami sandwich any time soon ;)