Emily Haswell, shared photographs taken by her one-year-old in a satirical analysis that included candid shots of herself with equal parts of pain and agony.
While changing diapers can be messy, and parents try to get over it as quickly as possible, babies have the most fun in these situations. Generally, parents find it easier to get through their everyday duties—like feeding the little ones, potty training and maintaining a semblance of cleanliness—by keeping their kids distracted.
These days, you almost always see children with an iPad or phone in their hands, and this one-year-old has taken full advantage of it to capture some Instagram-worthy photos of her mom while she changes her diapers. TikTok mom, Emily Haswell, shared these photographs with her followers in a satirical analysis that included candid shots of herself with equal parts of pain and agony. Though the pictures are not flattering, this mama embraced them as best she could.
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"Hi, I let my one-year-old hold my phone while I changed her diaper to keep her still," she says in the video that garnered over 1.2 million views. "Let's review some of the photos she's taken."
The first photo taken by her daughter, Sadie, shows an exhausted Haswell looking down upon her baby. "This is the first photo that Sadie took where I felt like she had some potential," she notes. "You can just see how she captured the moment that I opened the diaper and just lost all hope. My eyes, there's no light in the eyes, hands down by the side, just complete defeat, and I think Sadie captured that perfectly."
Haswell then moves onto a blurry yet dramatic photo of herself grabbing Sadie by her foot, describing it as Sadie’s "early work, very amateurish, very blurry." She adds, "I do like the story that the motion down here is telling because you can see that I am grabbing her foot to not get her to smear it in her feces." Moving on to a still frame from a slow-motion video her daughter shot while tinkering with her mom’s phone, Haswell speaks of the photo as "innovative," adding how perfectly her one-year-old captured the moment she realized that potty training was a far-off dream.
And lastly, Haswell reviewed Sadie's "most recent work," showing visible signs of improvement and clarity. "Look at the juxtaposition between the sad woman changing the diaper and the unused bassinet full of laundry. I mean, the chef's kiss," she hilariously added.
Most babies go through stages when they resist diaper changes, and by eleven months old, a child is old enough to be more in charge of their body. They don't like adults scooping them up and disrobing them when occupied with something. However, the only way to proceed with this necessary but unpleasant duty is to divert them with incentives if you have a baby that is uncomfortable in wet diapers and needs a diaper change. Be gentle with them, use "Mindful Diaper Change Practice," ( compassion, calmness and open-hearted presence of the mother during the diaper change process), start roughhousing, be silly and after ten minutes, make the diaper change a bit fun. Moreover, ease your baby into it instead of rummaging through it, and provide live entertainment such as a television show in the background, music or as many silly faces and noises as you can.
With fellow moms relating to this honest reality of motherhood, many shared similar instances and their take on Sadie’s photography career. "The difference in technique between the first one and the last is very impressive but I'm more of a fan of the real raw emotion in her early work," commented @albaetc. "My phone has THOUSANDS of images just like this for the same reason," added @luumpie. "I love the rawness of the photos. Perfectly captured the emotion. My son is also working on these types of portfolios," wrote @maddieelam12. "Put ‘sad women changing a diaper with laundry basket’ in the Louvre!" suggested @brummymummyof2. "Omg haha I didn’t know anyone else had these types of random videos and photos too," admitted @xtina0127.