It's a crappy job, but someone has got to do it.
"We have a winner!"
— Joey Gladstone (when touching Michelle's diaper), Full House, "Our Very First Show"
So the Loving Mom or Loving Father is running around the house and trying to do several tasks at once. Maybe they are fixing dinner or have to take out the trash. It could be they are simply watching their kid play in a box instead of their expensive holiday gift or trying to feed their other child.
The big sister may be wandering into the room or the goofy, klutzy Dad comes in to try and assist the Mom in whatever task she is busy with. Then, the parent asks, "What's that smell?" and immediately requests that somebody check the child's diaper to see if they need a diaper change.
Does not always include a smell the diaper moment but that is usually the quickest determiner to if a baby needs a diaper change. May also include scenes of somebody pulling the back of and/or feeling the diaper, or rarely, opening the leg siding to see inside the actual diaper. Also the person checking the diaper may not be the actual diaper changer after confirming the contents (if there are any; if there aren't, see Grossout Fakeout).
Related Tropes:
- Babysitting Episode: The babysitter might have to check a baby's diaper.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: May be the icing on top after their awful night when they smell something afoul.
- Continuously Crying Child: Somebody might check a baby's diaper to determine if that's why they're crying.
- A Day in Her Apron: May involve the dad taking over chores the mom usually does.
- The Diaper Change: Often the prelude to this event happening, naturally.
- Grossout Fakeout: This is what happens if someone checks the diaper, but it turns out not to be dirty.
- Nausea Fuel: Upon the checker realizing what the diaper probably contains.
- Nobody Poops: An aversion; the whole reason for this trope is checking if the baby has pooped or peed.
- Squick: If the diaper turns out to be dirty, it could lead to grossness.
- Toilet Humour: These scenes are usually Played for Laughs.
- Truth in Television: This is a realistic part of looking after a baby.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Pretty Cure:
- Doki Doki! PreCure: In Episode 8, when Ai-chan won't stop crying, Rikka thinks she may need her diaper changed and lays her down on a towel to check, she finds it clean, and Ai-chan just keeps crying. This was bowdlerized into trying to lay her down for a nap in Glitter Force Doki Doki.
- HuGtto! Pretty Cure:
- In the first episode, Hariham Harry does this when Hugtan cries as a monster approaches the two.
- In episode 14, Hana tries to figure out why Seitarou is crying and thinks it's his diaper when it's actually the Oshimaida. It's not implied if he actually went in his diaper or not.
- In episode 22, Hugtan cries over Emiru and Ruru's argument because she wants them to stop fighting. Harry asks if Hugtan is ready for a diaper change, and Emiru takes Hugtan out of the room to get changed.
Fan Works
- In One Angry Person
, based on The Loud House, Lincoln wakes up his baby sister Lily in the morning and checks her diaper.
- Pound and Pumpkin Cake's Adventures (and Misadventures) in Potty Training:
- In the first chapter, "What's That Noise?", Mr. Cake checks his two-year-old twin children's diapers first thing in the morning, and finds them clean.
- In "To Snatch a Potty", Mrs. Cake wakes Pumpkin up in the morning, and again finds her diaper clean.
- In "Everypony Poops", Mrs. Cake wakes the twins up and checks their diapers, again discovering that they're clean.
- In "To Flush or Not to Flush", Pumpkin steals her brother Pound's pacifier and stuffs it down her diaper. The next morning, she's worried that she might have wet or soiled her diaper in her sleep, so she checks herself, but luckily, she hasn't.
- In "That's Not a Potty", Pinkie Pie discovers that somebody peed in a toy teapot. She discovers it was Pound after checking the twins' diapers and finding that his is slightly wet.
Films — Live-Action
- American Reunion: Jim's dad remarks that Jim & Michelle's son has, "a little poopy diaper," as he and Michelle head into the house.
- In Back to the Future Part III, after travelling in time to 1885, Marty McFly tenderly holds the baby that would become his great-grandfather, the first America-born McFly... then he lifts the baby to check his diapers as he's just peed on him.
- The Pacifier Shane is forced to change a diaper after Baby Tyler giggles. Zoe promptly hands him off to Shane, knowing full well he pooped.
- Three Men and a Baby A female friend of Tom Selleck and Steve Gutenberg drops by and holds the baby, talking to her until she realizes upon patting her diaper that she needs a diaper change.
Live Action Television
- Baby Daddy The pilot episode features Riley carrying Emma around until she suddenly feels added heaviness and remarks, "I think somebody needs her diaper changed."
- The second episode of Drake & Josh deals with this including jokes pertaining to how bad the diaper smells due to the baby pooping. Includes a moment where the initial holder of the baby sniffs the diaper and remarks that the baby pooped, followed by Josh passing out from the stench after smelling the baby's butt himself.
- Full House In the first episode, Joey is forced to check Michelle's diaper by Uncle Jesse, leading to the page quote.
- Good Luck Charlie:
- In "Baby Come Back", when P.J. returns home, Teddy sniffs and asks him if either he or Emma bothered to change Charlie's diaper. When she prepares to change her, she finds out that P.J. accidentally brought home Emma's baby brother in a nearly-identical baby carriage.
- In "Dance Off", Bob sniffs Charlie and says, "P.U. Alert!", indicating that she needs her diaper changed. However, due to rumors started by Gabe as part of his plan to get them to argue and him to get out of doing his homework, Amy thinks Bob is talking about her perfume.
- In "Charlie in Charge", Gabe sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose as Jo remarks, "It's coming from the business end of that baby," implying Charlie pooped.
Music
- Da Yoopers' "Turdy Lb. Diaper" is about this. The husband is left alone with the baby, and reacts in horror when he finds how comically overloaded the kid's diaper is.
- Referenced in "Baby's Got the Car Keys" by Trout Fishing in America. The family is getting ready for work, but dad can't find the car keys. He smells the baby's diaper, but says that it has to wait until said car keys are found. Later in the song, he decides to change the diaper anyway, and finds the keys inside of them.
Puppet Shows
- In Dinosaurs, Baby has the ability to talk and will often tell the rest of his family when he needs a diaper change. Two specific examples other characters indicating he needs a diaper change include the beginning of the episode, "Nature Calls", when Earl, Roy, and Robbie sniff around and Baby flat-out tells them he needs to be changed, and towards the end of the episode, "Terrible Twos", when The Babysitter tells Earl and Fran there's a scent of brimstone hanging in the air, to which Fran tells him she and Earl weren't able to change Baby in quite a while.
- In The Noddy Shop episode "Skunked", the crybabies ask each other if they had an accident upon smelling the skunk smell.
- Sesame Street: In one episode, some characters are babysitting a baby named Natasha, who is crying and yelling, "Hoongie!" over and over. At one point, they check to see if her diaper needs changing and find that it does, but that's not what was bothering her. It turns out she lost a doll named Hoongie.
Web Original
- In Episode 63 of The Most Popular Girls in School:
Brittnay: Son of a bitch! Saison, what is wrong with that fucking baby?!
Saison: Oh well, is either hungry, or she has to, how do you say, poop.Brittnay: ...Oh, oh God, oh my—what the fuck is that smell?
Saison: Oh, it's a poop. That explains the crying. Mystery solved!
Brittnay: Saison, for the love of God, will you please go change your child's diaper.
Saison: Okay, if you say so.
(Later)
Saison: Okay, okay, all of le poo-poo has been cleaned up and we can now resume.
Western Animation
- Dexter's Laboratory has one scene where Dee Dee sniffs the air and mentions that her Dad needs a diaper change, after all the adults were transformed into babies.
- Horrid Henry: In "Horrid Henry Changes a Nappy", Peter smells a bad smell, and when trying to find its cause, sniffs baby Vera and discovers that she needs to be changed.
- The Loud House: In "The Crying Dame", baby Lily's siblings are trying to determine why she is crying. Lisa checks her diaper (while wearing a Hazmat Suit, no less) only to discover that the diaper is clean.
- Martha Speaks: In "Martha Takes a Stand", Martha the dog rolls in stinky stuff, and the humans try to determine the source of the smell. Helen sniffs at her baby brother Jake's diaper, but it's clean.
- In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, "Baby Cakes", Mrs. Cake asks who needs a diaper change. Pinkie Pie says they're fine before picking up Pound and sniffing, thus discovering that, yes, he does; Mr. Cake comes in and changes both babies. Complete with visible smell.
- Peppa Pig: In "What Babies Do", Auntie Pig states that she thinks her baby son Alexander is soiling himself. Uncle Pig sniffs him to check and finds that he has.
- Rugrats:
- In "Send in the Clouds", one-year-old Tommy Pickles cries. His grandfather, Lou, thinks that Tommy is wet and checks his diaper, only to find that it's dry.
- In "Let it Snow", Didi thinks there's something wrong with the babies, when in reality, they're trying to sing. She checks Tommy's diaper, but luckily, it's clean.
- In "Man of the House", Didi is wondering why baby Dil is crying (actually because Tommy accidentally broke his rattle). She checks his diaper and finds that it's clean.
- The Simpsons: In "Strong Arms of the Ma", Bart tells his mother Marge that his baby sister Maggie soiled her diaper. Marge sniffs at Maggie and determines it's true.
