If you’re an internet-savvy parent you may already have been
bombarded by the “vest epiphany” shared and blogged about by Mama Undone at
tiarasandprozac.com. If not, you need to check out her discovery, which made us
chortle like babies ourselves, not at Mama Undone, but with her, understanding
what frazzled parents the world over know—there’s always something new to
learn!
Sure,
the “envelope shoulder” on the infant bodysuit has been around forever, but do
you know why? Like the millions (maybe billions?) of parents before you,
you probably thought the layered shoulder design was cute and just, well was
the way it was. In fact, the envelope shoulder serves a real, important, and hygienic
purpose!
Should your baby experience an over-loaded diaper (referred
to charmingly by the SAHM blogger as a “poonami”), you can extricate the child
from his or her suit by opening the envelope shoulder and pulling the cotton
down off his or her shoulders, arms, and torso instead of dragging a soiled
suit over their head and face!
Brilliant, right? Yes, and one of the best kept secrets in
parent-dom apparently. Did you know that even the Gerber Corporation, that claims that
Onesie™ is actually not a generic clothing descriptor like “pants” or “diaper,”
but is their registered trademark, says on the baby brand’s own Onesie™
webpage that the “lap shoulder” (aka envelope shoulder) is described as existing for
“ease of dressing,” with nary a word about the convenience of ripping the cotton
off your child as quickly as possible without flinging, well, poo, everywhere.
The creator of this innovative design is apparently lost to
history (although we’re going in search of the story now that we know they're lost!), and will
post our findings on “The History of the Infant Bodysuit” as soon as we’ve
found it! . It seems that infant bodysuit makers the world over were missing a
key marketing point. Thanks Mama Undone for helping parents and babies
everywhere!
