The Diaper Change - Television Tropes & Idioms

Reaction May Be Normal

Shane "I don't know how to change a diaper!"

— The Pacifier

So the Loving Mom or Loving Father has to take off for their job or some other very important mission. Time for the other parent, who is rarely at home to watch the kids. If they are a single parent, maybe it is time to hire the unlikely godfather or uncle or have your friendly coworker/neighbor/sibling/best friend come over to babysit just for the night.

If there is a child under the age of three years old, this trope will certainly come into play at some point. Especially if you have a male caregiver taking over. Often involves somebody who doesn't know how to or is inexperienced at changing diapers for comedy. Most often seen in family movies or television shows with infants in the family.

A Tinkle In The Eye will often come into play if the child is a boy.

Related Tropes/Tropes Found In Scenes:

Badly Battered Babysitter Rare but can be part of the culmination.
Nausea Fuel Mostly for males.
Nobody Poops Often strongly inverted.
Tinkle In The Eye
Truth in Television

Examples of Trope:

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Anime and Manga

Yui of the ecchi series Koharu Biyori has to change a diaper and in the process a Tinkle In The Eye causes a short in the Robot Girl's system that deletes all the baby care information she had downloaded specifically for the task.
In one episode of Kinnikuman, Kinniuman must fight against Wolfman in a Sumo Wrestling match. When his parents see him in his mawashi, they joking remark on how much it looks like a diaper, prompting the mother to put one on Kinnikuman for laughs. Wolfman and Meat however don't find it humorous at all...
One episode of Tenchi Muyo! involved Tenchi and co having to babysit Tenchi's infant cousin. It eventually turned out that the only person present capable of performing any kind of infant care (including diaper changing) was Washu.

Film

Baby Boom Features a Rare Female Example.
Jersey Girl More controversial for the lack of a discretion shot.
Mr Mom The father gets left home with the kids and ends up leaving his infant son unsupervised. Said son proceeds to eat a can of chili. Of course the father runs out of diapers.
The Family Man Nicolas Cage's character wakes up one morning and has to change his son's diaper in an unfamiliar life.
The Pacifier After the nanny quits, Vin Diesel's character is forced to take care of the kids and includes a diaper changing scene.
Three Men And A Baby Features two examples! The first involves the characters of Steve Guttenberg and Tom Selleck being forced to try and change a diaper on their leather couch and it fails. The second example has Ted Danson's character return to the apartment and inevitably is forced to perform an offscreen diaper change.

Literature

Used in Animorphs "The Warning", when the group waits until after a diaper change, then gets the diaper to give their fly morphs something to guide them to the correct airplane terminal in the airport.
Subverted in Loser. Zinkoff's dad is very good about changing diapers but has no stomach for vomit. Unfortunately, his son is a Waterfall Puker.

Live Action Television

Occurs in Friends when Joey and Chandler take care of Ben. An early episode also had Rachel being taught the task.
Full House In the first episode Uncle Jesse and Joey are forced to change Michelle's diaper after Danny takes off. They improvise pretty well.
Saved by the Bell has an episode where Zack is taking care of Kelly's cousin. The situation leads to him using Slater's shirt as a makeshift diaper.
Occurs as a plot point in House, M.D. when House has to babysit Cuddy's daughter. Several attempts at offscreen and onscreen diaper changes occur as House and Wilson try to figure out if the daughter ate a dime or not after they ordered Chinese food. Just as House thinks he is safe without telling Cuddy what happened, he gets found out.
Joked about on CSI NY after Mac is asked to be Lucy's godfather.
Flack: Godfather, you know that's code word for diaper changer.
- Later, Danny jokes about it to Lindsay too
  Danny: You got your "I don't like what I see face." The one you get when you're changing Lucy's diaper.
An episode in Season 3 of iCarly features Carly, Sam, and Freddie watching over a baby at Spencer & Carly's apartment. Upon hearing the baby cry, Sam informs Carly it's her turn to change the diaper and warns Carly that he's a "distance pee-er" which we then see with the baby peeing from the offscreen bottom of the crib.
The second episode of Drake & Josh deals with this including jokes pertaining to how bad the diaper smells due to the baby pooping. We later get a scene with the brothers hosing the baby in the sink with Megan helping pinch their noses. Also features a pee on the changers moment.
Happens in MacGyver when Mac and Jack Dalton have a baby dumped on them in "Rock the Cradle". Mac's solution involves uses duct tape to ensure the makeshift diaper stays on the baby.

Western Animation

The show Rugrats has an episode where DeeDee brings Tommy in for the class she is substitute teaching. A scene occurs where she has a student change Tommy's diaper as a parenting example but nobody is willing until the cool guy with sunglasses (a parody of The Fonz) does so. Turns out he has a baby brother at home and is quite used to it.
The Donald Duck short "Modern Inventions" has a scene where Donald decides to mess with a futuristic robot nurse maid styled like baby carrige. Donald eventually get more than he bargains for when the robot puts him in a diaper, which Donald laughs off.
Disney's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse has an entire episode of Goofy transforming into a baby and having the cast take care of him. The first thing they do is put him in a diaper.
Happens in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic episode "Baby Cakes". When Carrot Cake does it, he does it with a father's experience, but Pinkie Pie's ends with her wearing both diapers, which nopony else wears for the rest of the episode.