Short Form Video

Sometimes we don’t have the time for long form reading. For this reason, I’ve started to make short form videos on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube that deliver concepts I’m writing about in bite sized-format.

Below are links to 3 videos that cover some of what I’m writing about this week.

Play & Guilt | Rethink Diapering | 5000 Diapers

AdinWahyu Wiedyardini, The Wild Within #3, 2025

5000 Diapers

Last week, I introduced the idea of Motherhood Agency as becoming ‘the gamemaster’: choosing your direction inside the chaos, experimenting without needing external validation, and building trust in your own judgment.

This week: the practice that helps you actually do that.

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The Unexpected Portal

Never in a million years would I have guessed diaper changing would be a channel into transformation as both a mother, entrepreneur, designer and educator.

The vision for The Nest, the diaper changing pad I’ll be bringing to market later this year, came from an intense (but somewhat surface level) pain point.

I didn’t get the memo that diaper changing would get progressively harder once my babies started moving through their developmental milestones as rising toddlers.

Of course a baby isn't going to lay on her back when she can sit up, flip over, run away screaming. The resulting wrestling matches filled with desperate tears, grabbing, pinning down WWE-style, poop everywhere were awful. These physical and emotional power struggles left me feeling like Worst Mom Ever.

Then I stumbled on giving your child a toy during the change. EUREKA. Suddenly I had a new tool to diffuse power struggles and make diaper changing playful.

Turns out, this wasn't an original discovery. Hardly. I started to observe that many of my fellow mothers and friends kept special toy baskets in arm's reach in the diapering environments to incentive, calm, entertain during a diaper change gone awry.

This toy-as-distraction birthed my founder lightbulb moment: what if we designed a diaper changing pad that integrated toys and developmentally-appropriate play patterns?

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Play as Care, Care as Play

What if The Keekaroo Peanut Changer and Lovevery had a baby?

I spent eighteen months designing, validating, testing this concept. More lightbulbs came, the most potent when I discovered diapering was deeply connected to potty learning, yet the two acts are separated. I needed to design a system spanning the entire journey, not just a singular product.

But last summer, as I was gearing up to go to market, I started building my developmental and medical board of advisors: through that process, my aforementioned transformation started.

As I started to do some brand development work with the brilliant Jeremy Perez-Cruz and his team at Parts Per Million, I was faced with developing the purpose, mission, vision of Mother of Invention.

“To make the diaper changing to potty learning journey better” felt shallow.

Reading Tina Payne Bryson's The Way of Play, I began contemplating how play isn't a break from childhood development. Rather, it is development. Play is the workout for baby’s brain development.

Then I reflected: diaper changes are THE most repetitive act in early childhood caregiving. You don't do anything more frequently in the first 3-4 years. Data suggests 5,000-8,000 diaper changes before you cancel your Coterie subscription once and for all.

Then I started thinking more deeply about toys in the diapering environment. Sure, they function for th baby. I had approached product development with the desire to build a product that helped distract a squirmy 10 month old or entertain a cranky toddler long enough to get the diaper change over with.

But what if the play arm of the diaper pad was designed to cue the adult? What if the toys were actually for the caregiver?

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Sophie’s Choice

1.5-year-old (ish?) Sammy and I were headed upstairs with a poop diaper. I was pretty sure there was leakage, so I wasn’t looking forward to doing the doo.

Prepping the station for a blowout, I gave Sammy her Sophie La Giraffe teether while she toddled next to me. Sammy started making Sophie run along the dresser housing our Keekaroo pad.

After prepping the diaper changing battleground for World War Poop, I got on my knees and helped Sammy guide Sophie as she galloped across the drawer. I found myself taking control of Sophie La Giraffe, voicing her in a breathy Betty Boop meets Blanche Devereaux:

“Sammy Girl, would you like to come up here and watch my circus show?”

Sammy said yes by reaching up to me. And suddenly my battlefield transmogrified into circus ring. I totally forgot about the leaky poop soaking through leggings.

We didn’t immediately start the diaper change. Sophie trotted around the pad, taking her sweet time setting up her amazing flying act. She was a very mesmerizing Ringmistress.

Then she took off flipping, twisting, landing on the wall sideways. Then she stood on her head on the wall, physics and gravity be damned! As her amazing flying act came to an end, the silicone giraffe hovered right at Sammy’s eye level:

“Oh Sammy girl, are you ready for the next act? I call it the Magic Diaper Change of Wonder and Rainbows!”

(No idea where that came from… thank you brain!)

As I helped Sammy lie down for Act II, Sophie made her way into my toddler’s tiny hands. Sammy made her fly around for a few seconds while I removed her leggings and leaky diaper.

Sophie soon needed a break from flying and Act II came to a fairly abrupt end. I, in normal mommy voice, asked Sophie if she’d like a blanket and a nap.

Sammy (for Sophie) said yes, so I gave her a wipe as a blanked. For a good minute Sophie La Giraffe napped on Sammy’s chest. Sammy checked on her, told me “Shhh!”, and patted her as I took my time to clean and administer a new diaper.

There was no need to rush. We were both in the flow of play.

Even after Sammy was fully cleaned and re-clothed, we kept playing while she laid on the pad. Sophie woke up and I grabbed a cow finger puppet and Act III began: The Moo-verse.

We moo-ed and played another five minutes on the pad, then transitioned off and kept the play going on the nursery floor.

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Play As Care, Care as Play

This Sophie La Giraffe was my true north “ah-ha!” moment: we have to change how we think about a diaper change.

Through that experience, I realized the following:

1. The toys are a portal to play for both baby and caregiver. When we both play, Sammy’s brain is developing on overdrive, and we’re deepening our connection.

2. The diaper changing pad can be a play mat!

3. Getting lost in play with my baby, even while I’m cleaning up a poop bomb, is a form of flow. And it feels great to be in flow, even if just for a few minutes.

Parts Per Million helped crystallize this into a simple statement: Play as Care, Care as Play.

Whether diapering, feeding, or tummy time-ing: when we approach caregiving as an opportunity to play (or be playful), and play IS development, what a magic unlock.

To be clear: I’m not suggesting each of the 5,000 diaper changes should be a Sophie La Giraffe Circus. But what if 10% had a playful bent?

Connecting this back to Motherhood Agency: it’s a gamemaster choice to approach caregiving through the lens of Play as Care, Care as Play. Maybe sometimes you tap into profound micro-flows. Maybe sometimes World War Poop is just that.

But the frame is the Agency.

Next week I’ll take Play As Care / Care as Play a step further… stay tuned.