BurpCatcher: Making Laundry a Bit Lighter

Nemo has reflux, and one of the first things you learn as the parent of a baby with reflux is that just when you thought you might be able to stay on top on the laundry and still get something else in the house done, you find yourself with a "laundry problem," as one of my children's pediatricians so aptly put it, of monumental proportions.  Literally.  We have a mound of laundry in our basement around the machines high enough that the kids jump in it as though it were a pile of freshly raked leaves.  But unlike leaves, there is a great chance of the kids sliding some body part through a smudge of the slimy goo ejected from Nemo's body as we wait for his system to mature enough to hold it in, eliciting squeals and shrieks of "Gross!" and "aw, Mom".  The Puke.

Nemo is a champion puker.  He eats, he barfs.  And when he barfs, he barfs in dramatic fashion, covering himself, whoever is holding him, wherever he is sitting or laying, a good amount of upholstery and carpet, and an even larger amount of bedding.  I've always used cloth diaper liners as burp cloths, but invariably also need a towel underneath as the diaper liners don't quite absorb the spew right away and it runs down the liner onto the clothes underneath.

I absolutely cracked up when I discovered that the product the Parent Bloggers Network sent me to review was the BurpCatcher.  How appropriate that we got that one? It's one of those products that you look at and say "You know, I could've thought of that," it's so obvious, but you didn't, so you shake yourself soundly and be happy someone else did, because now you get to benefit without those messy patent negotiations and production schedules that keep you up at night.  It's simply a soft cloth diaper with a pocket at one end that hangs open to catch the puke.  It comes in fleece or flannel, and we reviewed the flannel version, which comes 2 to a package for $10.

The first thing we noticed is that they're SOFT.  Like, soft like the skin on your baby's belly, soft.  The older kids kept rubbing them against their own faces, and no matter how much we wiped Nemo's face with them it didn't get irritated, which sometimes happened with our regular cloth diapers.  And these suckers are absorbent.  With cloth diapers I typically have to double or triple up on them for a really big emission, but I only needed one with the BurpCatcher.  The barf stays on the BurpCatcher and doesn't get on your clothes.

As soft and absorbent as it is, though, I had 2 issues with the BurpCatcher.  The first is that Nemo takes medicine for reflux that is suspended in a chocolate syrup.  This means that sometimes his puke resembles the original product that cloth diapers were designed to handle.  Because the BurpCatcher is white, ours got stained with little brown stains relatively quickly, and because of the trim on the BurpCatcher, it can't be bleached.  A completely white option with no trim would be a welcome addition to the product line.  The second issue is that with a child with reflux, you can't always predict with any reliability what direction the spew is going to head - over the shoulder or down your front between the baby and you, over your arm or between the baby and the arm, you get the idea (my favorite is down the front of my shirt and bra).  I think I'm going to try sewing my BurpCatchers together end-to-end, so there is a pocket on each end, so I'm covered no matter which way the puke flies and my cups won't runneth over.  At least not with puke.  But really, these are minor issues, and if you have a normal baby with a normal amount of spit and they don't take a strangely colored medicine, the product as is should be fine.  Either way, our BurpCatchers will stay in our diaper bag, and I will be buying more of them, for myself, for shower gifts, for my big kids to use as loveys, to make small animals out of them...sorry, got carried away there for a minute.  Bottom line - get these, do less laundry.  Who could argue with that?

Neither of my two guessers got it right, so if you're interested in winning a BurpCatcher and you are not Angi or Elizabeth (who will be automatically entered), post a comment to this post and I'll do a random drawing on Friday.

Comments

[Oh, The Joys]

What I need (REALLY NEED) is a fart catcher.

[Redneck Mommy]

Burp Catcher.

They think of the damndest things nowadays.