Can you tell the difference between when your baby has gas and when he has a bowel movement?

When it’s of the brown variety – the stink lingers!
If it’s just gas – the smell goes away within 30 seconds.
(I realized the other day that I was a full fledged mother when I lifted up my son and took a sniff of his butt just to be sure!)
Both smell horribly but when it won’t go away – then it’s time to push up your sleeves and put a clothespin on your nose!

And if I’m really unsure – like others have said – I check the outside of the diaper and you’ll see a brown section – or you can just open up the tabs, take a quick look and see for sure!

Also – try not to change it RIGHT away when they’ve gone poo – give it a minute or two so they’re DONE! I’ve gone to change it quickly and ended up having two dirty diapers – or having him push out more just as I’m done cleaning him up. It’s not a fun thing to watch! (And if no one has told you – put a wipe over the wee-wee’s of boys so they don’t make even more of a mess of the situation.)

My son used to trick my husband and I – we’d be playing a game of russian roulette so to speak – and each time we thought we had handed off a nasty diaper to the other one – it turned out to be gas and then WHAM we’d get ourselves with the nasty diaper. We’ve learned to give him a whiff and there is NO denying when it’s a full one! Takes some of the fun out of the game but at least we can give ourselves some prep time and get some deep breaths in before attempting the clean up.