My nearly 2 year old has discovered her poop. It’s disgusting. I walked into her room the other day to get her out of the crib after her nap only to discover feces smeared everywhere. She had completely disrobed and painted the poop all over the crib. After vomiting in my mouth, I vowed to put an end to it.

The problem is that she kept outsmarting me. My daughter was reaching in her diaper from the top, so I put a onesie on her. That worked for a day until she discovered she could reach into the side of the diaper. I decided maybe I could potty train her, but she went ape bananas when I put her on the toilet. I tried one-piece PJs (you know, with the zipper) and she promptly unzipped them. I tried a safety pin threaded through the zipper, which she promptly figured out how to undo and poked herself with it (turns out that was a bad idea). I ultimately concluded that my only solution was to sew her into her jammies so she couldn’t get to her diaper. (Drastic measures, I know.) I simply sewed the zipper flap to the top side of the jammies. After a week of sewing her in at bedtime and naptime, I had conquered the poop problem, but was spending a lot of time sewing her in and cutting her out. (It was kind of ridiculous.)

Then my husband, who is a genius, had a light-bulb moment. He suggested we simply put the pajamas on her backwards. Instead of zipping up the front where she can reach the zipper, the zipper would go up the back. I got new pajamas that were a little large so there was enough extra play in the legs to be able to twist the feet around. And I gave it a try. I am happy to report, it worked. (Did I mention my husband, who may be reading this, is a genius?) She can’t get out of the pajamas, which means she can’t access her diaper. I’ll admit that it’s a pain to get her in and out of PJs for nap time, but the extra minute of work is well worth avoiding the aggravation of cleaning up poop–and it’s a heck of a lot easier than sewing her into her jammies every time she sleeps.

If you or someone you know is struggling with a poop smearing kid, feel free to spread the tip. I figure we’re all in this together and I love to help however I can.

This is a pic of my daughter just before going to bed tonight. The PJs are a little big, so the feet can twist forward and the higher cut on the top, back of the jammies, doesn’t choke her when placed backwards. The zipper is also going up the back.

Here’s the front view:

Here’s the back view: