Changing Table Hack

Today, Iain went to the doctor. They found that he's now in the 45th percentile for weight, the 95th for height, and off the charts on head size. So the duet between his height and head continues. If you read his growth chart, you can see the two trading off which is off the chart vs. which is in the 95th.

This problem (a huuuuuge, Sputnik-like, noggin atop a looong thin body) causes all kinds of ripples in our everyday life. For example, he needs longer onesies to fit his long torso, but they don't really make onesies long enough. So he's in T-shirts even though he doesn't walk yet.

A second challenge caused by the head/height problem is that Iain does not fit onto changing pads. Not at gas stations, airports (except Heathrow - kudos to the British!), restaurants or at home. We had the same changing pad as everyone else, and his head regularly slipped off and ended up on the hard wooden surface of the table. It was not cool. He cried.

So Charles was thinking about a hack. For those of you who do not spend the majority of every day on teh interwebs, a hack is something that you put together at home that solves some problem unaddressed by consumer goods. Or, it solves a problem that would be expensive to solve using consumer goods.

Saturday, we hacked our changing pad problem.

• Step one: realizing that the thin, cheap mattress at IKEA is the same size as the top of the changing table.
• Step two: Buying said mattress for practically nothing.
• Step three: realizing that a simple bedsheet would fit as a cover, because (duh) it's a mattress.
  

Here are the results:

Observe how this solution means that the entire top of the table is a pad. Iain can roll over and not be off the pad. Likewise, you can put the wipes on the pad and they are on a flat surface.


Note that the sheet goes all the way down over the wooden lip of the desk. This is good because you can avoid slippage and because it softens that edge against your hips, etc.

That's a Target sheet, which means that this entire project (time elapsed (not counting the trip to IKEA): 3 minutes, plus 30 seconds to admire it and congratulate ourselves on being geniuses.) cost less than dinner for two, a haircut, a tank of gas, shipping on my bulbs, a pedicure...you get the idea.