A few posts ago I discussed the stinky situation that as a parent you find yourself really talking more about than you ever thought possible. Today I’m going to discuss a not fun situation that can accompany that stinky situation.
For us that’s diaper rash. I’m pretty sure at one point or another all babies/toddlers get a form of diaper rash. It can probably range from mild to severe. We unfortunately seem to be playing the game of revolving diaper rash. Yes, we have discussed it with doctors, yes we are trying to figure out a solution for it, but for now this is how we handle this unfortunate situation.
I started noticing that we were in a weird pattern with diaper rash when Cameron would get backed up for a couple days, we would then figure out how to get the flow going, but when we did it was like opening up gates and we were stuck with changing 7-8 poop diapers a day because they would be small but often which of course you never want to leave the baby sitting in that for very long.
Well she would be straining to poop, and all the straining and the constant changing would then proceed to cause her to develop a rash. She would then have the rash which would cause her pain, so when we would try to wipe, she would fight up and wiggle, and kick, and cry, and make it hard to get in there to clean her out so it didn’t become infected. It was not a fun time for anyone, she was in pain, we felt bad for thinking we were hurting her more, it was just miserable. Then a few days later she would clear up, get stopped up, we would intervene, and the cycle would start over again.
First thing we did was try to figure out if any sort of food was possibly causing it. So we started monitoring the food she ate when she would go on these short, small, sticky poop episodes to see if we could find a trigger. One major factor we noticed, was acidic and sugar did seem to play big parts. So we cut out as much as we could of food that contained those ingredients to see if that helped. And it did, but with a picky toddler you need to pick your battles when it comes to what they will decide to eat and what they push away. So we still monitor what we are giving her in hopes that as long as we minimize the acidic and sugary foods we can keep the rashes to a minimum.
When she gets these rashes, and refuses to let you near her bottom, you gotta think of fast things to do to clean her up. We’ve used any and all wipes that I have researched. Sensitive, mostly water, etc and etc. We have used moist paper towels, hand clothes, wash clothes, and thrown her right in the tub, but when her butt is that sore nothing really seems to make her want to have us anywhere near there. So we try to make the changes as quick as possible and try to be as fast as we can with whatever method we chose to clean her up with.
Then of course, the medicine aka diaper rash creams. You name it, we have probably tried it. We have done desitin in multiple varieties, buttpaste in multiple varieties, a cream from Germany, some natural type cream my father in law recommended, and mostly recently Balmex. They all did seem to work pretty well, but right now the current favorite is the Balmex because it seemed to be the most fast acting this latest round.
You can find most of these on amazon or in your local CVS, Walgreens, target, Walmart, or super market.
It pains me when she hurts, and we will continue to have discussions with her doctors as to why it seems to occur for her more often than is probably normal. I’m just glad we seem to be finding things that work quicker and quicker each time we have to deal with this.
Has your child ever had a bad diaper rash? What did you do to ease the pain?