Rash & Sensibility

Dylan has had an ongoing battle with diaper and skin rashes. He has dry, rashy skin on his legs and forearms, and a persistant moisture rash on his butt cheeks. He can't stop scratching it, which of course, makes it worse. His arms actually have scabs on them, which is so disheartening for me as his mother. Poor baby! The diaper rash comes and goes, but almost looks hive-like at times. We're giving him a certain amount of "naked time" to run around after his bath, in the hopes that will help. He loves being naked, but spends the whole time scratching his hips and butt. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

Eczema is the obvious usual suspect. Dylan was wheat and dairy free for several months, but it didn't seem to help enough. I'm still limiting both in his diet, just in case. The naturopathic pediatrician says that sometimes an elimination diet can take 6 months or more to really work, and that I should really go dairy free as well.

Yeah... I don't think that's going to happen.

I mean, I used to be practically vegan, so I know how to do it and everything. And on my own I already tried cutting out dairy for a week, and it didn't make a difference. That's the problem with elimination diets for allergies -- if they don't help, you are supposed to just keep doing them. For eternity, it would seem. And frankly, I'm not up for it. If being a mother has taught me anything, it's that extremism in any form isn't worth the effort, and we'll all live if we compromise. So I get dairy, the baby gets a mini cupcake at his friend's birthday party, and life goes on, with occasional rashiness.

Right now, I'm moisturizing his extremities, and that seems to work a little. The dry, cold air probably isn't helping these days with the dry skin. I got a boric acid salve from a colleague of the naturopath (a ridiculous amount of money for herbs, beeswax, and olive oil), just in case the diaper rash was yeast infected. Like everything else we've tried, it helped a little.

We put him in disposable diapers for 2 weeks. Meh. I guess it helped, but not enough. Now we're back in the cloth prefolds, but I've cut up a bunch of polar fleece scraps I had on hand into "diaper liners", and that (combined with various moisturizers) seems to be helping the most. The fleece keeps the moisture away from his skin, and the softness is a lot more comfortable for him. He likes it better than the plastic diapers. And I feel pretty cool for having made them, even if they ended up involving no sewing whatsoever. Plus: some of them are green, and some of them are rainbow patterned, so it makes diaper changes that much more festive. :)

Maybe all of this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise, however, because I think it is making Dylan more eager to get changed in a timely fashion. This week, he started signing "change" unprompted, which is often followed by pointing to the upstairs and walking in that direction (the changing table is in his room upstairs). He first started doing it with my mom while she was visiting, and now he's doing it with me, too. And everytime, we go and change him, and he's always at least wet. At first I wasn't sure if that's what he actually meant, because sometimes he would do it a few minutes after being changed. But sure enough, he'd need to be changed again. It may be time to introduce a "potty chair" so he can explore that idea. He can walk well enough to use one, and he clearly has an awareness of his elimination happening, and a desire to not sit in it for very long. I believe in kids sticking to their own timelines for learning stuff like potty training, but he's a bright and coordinated kid. I think we'll just bring one into the house and see what he thinks.