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I left our three-year-old alone with our brand new mattress and she destroyed it.
We had just nearly killed ourselves to drag out our nasty old stained heavy beast of a mattress and box springs, cleaned our room, and set up the surprisingly quick and easy brand new Naturepedic EOS mattress we had just received as part of a promotional collaboration. I almost never do those but we needed a new bed so taking some breastfeeding photos and sharing about it seemed totally worth it. My back was SO excited about this bed after years of back and hip issues thanks to a terrible sleep surface. I was nearly in tears with joyful anticipation of sleeping in that bed that night. We laid on it for a quick test and were already in love with this organic mattress customized to our different sleep comfort preferences.
My favorite sheets were in the washer and I didn’t want to make the bed with the “gross sheets.” That’s what I call them, because they are, well… gross. For our first night in our amazing new bed, the first time we’d had a new mattress in a very long time. I wanted it to be PERFECT.
It was family movie day for us so we decided to get started while the sheets were in the wash. We selected a movie all of us were interested in (Wonder Woman 1984, if you must know) and got started. But the three-year-old was bored. The story just didn’t captivate her thanks to the lack of singing animals and bright colors even with the 80’s aesthetic. We had a brilliant plan that would let us all relax and finish WW1984: set her up in the next room (our room) with the other TV to watch Over The Moon (if you haven’t seen it, you should, it's incredible). Thinking she might fall asleep we decided to put her in a pullup, got her comfy on the new bed with a blanket, and we all settled in to watch our movies.
This Would Turn Out to Be a Mistake.
Who could have foreseen that leaving a three-year-old alone in a room with a brand new mattress could possibly end poorly? Oh, literally ANYONE that has ever been with a three-year-old!
Twenty minutes later my husband left to go check on her. I assured him she had to have fallen asleep as it was quiet and she wasn’t singing along with the movie. He just wanted to go make sure she was okay. Because quiet + three-year-old = high probability of catastrophe.
After ten minutes, when he hadn’t come back, I went to see what was keeping him.
Oh, friends. As soon as I walked in, I saw what would dominate our next 2 hours. My husband was attempting to negotiate with our naked child standing in front of the mirror, a washcloth in his hand, the Swifer leaning against the wall. I scanned the room taking it all in.
It. Was. Everywhere.
The mirror, the dresser, the chair, the rug, the hardwood floor, the wall, the plants (THE PLANTS?!)...
The bed.
Poop.
Help me. There was so. much. poop.
She had gone full Picasso on my room, ON THE BED, and her medium of choice was feces.
The bed.
This child hasn’t pooped in a diaper or pull-up or underwear for nearly a year and here she was with excrement in her hair and under her fingernails having painted herself and our entire room with poop.
THE BED.
The bed. Our brand new, beautiful, most comfortable, nicest mattress we’d ever owned.
It had managed to remain unstained for one whole hour after we set it up.
Then, the three-year-old was left alone with it for TWENTY MINUTES. Poop. GROUND INTO THE FIBERS.
This Is, to Date, the Nicest, Newest, Most Expensive Thing One of my Children Has Ruined.
I don’t think these were the photos or the review that Naturepedic was hoping for. “The bed is great, even when covered in fecal matter” just doesn’t have much of a ring to it.
I want you to know that I did what I could to clean that mattress. I pulled out the wet vac and prayed for a miracle. And when the sheets were out of the drier, I made that bed and yes, I slept in it. Because I’m a parent and sleeping in poop (at least it was under the sheets this time) isn’t exactly a new experience for me. The next morning my back rejoiced. I had the best night's sleep I’d had in ages and only in part thanks to the workout from scrubbing poop off of everything.
The following day I reached out to Naturepedic. They thought the story was hilarious. Brand new dad of a three-day-old, Arin, laughed so much I knew I had found my kind of people. Thankfully, we could get a replacement mattress shell this weekend to swap out the poop shell. Arin also recommended a waterproof wool cover, all things considered. It was easy to swap out, but I’m still kicking myself for needing to in the first place.
Heads up, Naturepedic is having a July 4th Sale (from now until July 7, 2021) so you can get 15% off sitewide. I recommend using the discount and bonus free shipping on the customizable EOS organic mattresses. Same kind of mattress my kid poop painted on. You can get your very own, sans my little Picasso’s poop touch.
Drawing from a diverse background in the performing arts and midwifery Jessica Martin-Weber supports women and families, creating spaces for open dialogue. Writer, speaker and relationship and parenting coach, Jessica is the creator of TheLeakyBoob.com, co-creator of wereallhumanhere.com, freelance writer and mom. Jessica lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest and co-parents her 8 daughters with her husband of 25 years.