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Pampers, leaky diapers and maternity leave

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Culture & Entertainment

Pampers, leaky diapers and maternity leave

[caption id="attachment_3025" align="aligncenter" width="442" caption="Found: The happiest sleeping baby, on Pampers' fact sheet on dryness and sleep."] [/caption] Mom, did your babies have nighttime diaper leaks? I'm trying to think back now (five years in my case) and I think it wasn't a weekly issue because my infant was always awake in the middle of the night anyway and diaper changes were part of the 3 a.m. routine. Leaks did happen though, and nighttime leaks sucked cause I'd have to change the crib sheets, or my king-size sheet the times we were co-sleeping, not just the baby's sleeper. I remember thinking during these neverending nights, How exhausted would I be if I were back at work? Thank goodness for one year of paid maternity leave, I would say to myself. More on that in a minute. So here comes Pampers with the fix for leaky diapers, I learned. Back in June, I got to visit NYC to check out Pampers' latest product innovation: super-duper dry diapers. Apparently the Baby Dry line can hold 95 per cent of nighttime loads according to the fact sheet I got. That's a whole lot of pee, which I got to see for myself in a demo. These diapers really do hold a whole lot of blue liquid. Oh, I also learned that Pampers is making Swaddlers up to size 5 now, which is great for parents who love them. It's a pain to switch diapers when you don't actually want to, they just stop making them in the size you need. [caption id="attachment_3026" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Swaddlers now go up to size 5."] [/caption] Cool. Anyhow, I want to bring this around to maternity leave policies. As I was sitting down listening to Pampers' expert talk about the importance of sleep,  I had a revelation. Baby nighttime sleep is a big, big deal for American moms and I am going to contend it's a bigger deal than here in Canada because of the lack of proper maternity leave in the States. Sorry, but six weeks, three months...actually anything short of a year, in my opinion, is indecent. If I had to get up at 4 a.m. to change a cranky four-month-old's wet clothes and linens and start up a load of laundry and drive to work two hours after that...I'd take the pack of unused diapers and drop-kick them out the window in rage. So drier diapers for little babies = good. So my question is...is baby sleep more important when you're back at work? Or am I somehow slighting moms that are home with their infants, cause that's hard work too? -Helen

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Pampers, leaky diapers and maternity leave

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