Snap! The Four-Letter Word

I don’t really sew, but I do mend things.  After a button on a man’s dress shirt, the easiest thing in the world to replace is a snap.  However, on a new garment, they are probably considerably easier to install than a string of buttons (and their holes), or a zipper, or Velcro.  Yet, even though I know this, I have decided something …

Snaps suck!

Seriously, have you ever dressed a baby that has five snaps going down the front of their undershirt, followed by three snaps that either do up between the legs or on the tummy, followed by a sleeper that has six or seven more?  Urg! … Huff, huff, huff … I know what you’re thinking and I agree with you.  Snaps are hardly something to get riled up about … unless it’s three-thirty in the morning, you’ve just changed a poopy diaper in the dark because your eyes are as dilated as Golem’s when he lived in the cave, and you’ve just done the snaps up wrong three times in a row.  What else could make a sane person snap?  Seriously.

Well, I haven’t been living like that for some time.  I gave up snaps years ago, but I forgot about my unquenchable hatred toward them until recently.  I was lately reminded why I need to pass on the torch to new parents.  Newborn babies need to have their diaper changed between six and ten times a day.  If you take it for granted that you will need to change their diaper eight times a day (the average) and multiply it by the eight snaps on the undershirt and the six snaps on the sleeper – you will do up ONE HUNDRED SNAPS in a single day.  You’ll get callouses on your right hand forefinger and thumb by the end of one week.

So, here’s my advice to new parents: fork out the money for zippered sleepers. Then you only have to do up eight zippers a day.  Quite the difference, isn’t it?  My other advice is to forget all about undershirts that snap between the legs.  I buy ones that go down to the bellybutton and then stop.  That way you don’t have to muck with them each and every time you change a diaper. 

Now, I must warn you.  There are times when you’ll be tempted.  The sleepers with snaps on them will have unbelievably cute penguins on them, or kitties, or green aliens with three eyes.  Remind yourself firmly that it doesn’t matter what the confounded thing looks like at three o’clock in the morning.  You won’t be able to see it anyway.  You may also be tempted by the low price.  That’s a harder battle for me to win, but I came off conqueror eventually – and so can you.

In conclusion: zippers good J snaps bad L