Baby with terrible diarrhoea - what to do to soothe his bum?

[thecatwiththesilveryfur]

DS has been ill for about five days now, and at the moment is having about 10 diarrhoea nappies a day. His poor bum is red raw and clearly really painful. It's always sensitive so we use a lot of metanium, which normally clears it up, but this time even metanium isn't having much of an impact.

Any suggestions?

Metanium yellow is great
But check it isn’t going fungal my eldest ended up with a fucidic cream as his was so bad

Be very careful with oil, Lanolin based products, Vaseline etc as they can exacerbate conditions.

Also bamboo liners in nappies, chlorine free nappies and as much air time as possible help

And pat dry with a clean dry flannel after each change then allow bare bottom time.

Bath with soap every day. Metanium with a layer of bepanthen on top. The metanium heals the bepanthan acts as a protective barrier.

@52thecatwiththesilveryfur when DD was in hospital with pneumonia, she had terrible nappy rash caused by diarrhoea brought on by all the antibiotics. The nurses there made up a mix of orabase paste and yellow soft parafin (think it was half and half). It worked a treat! Not sure about how it interacts with eczema though, but might be worth checking it out.

Oh that’s hard if metanium isn’t sorting it. We call it the magic yellow cream cream in our house.

My first was very prone to bad nappy rash. It was like her poo burnt her when she was teething. We had to cut certain things out of her diet like citrus (which I guess you might be doing for the D&V anyway. We had to go back to cotton wool and water and no wipes. Also as much nappy free time as possible. We found wetter creams made it worse.

Wash and dry his bum with water and cotton wool, lay him on a towel on your chest, position him so his bum cheeks are spread and stay there as long as you can so the air can get to his bum. I used to do this in the garden and position my baby so that the red raw skin had sun shine on it to dry and heal it. Cream afterwards when you have to get up and nappy them.

Weleda is fantastic stuff.

Alternatively if you’ve got any lansinoh nipple balm, stick a blob of that in a cup with some hot water, mix mix mix, let it cool a bit and rub that on

My DD had a really bad tummy bug and was so sore despite all the usual creams. We got a steroid cream from the doctor and it worked really well.

I hope your DS feels better soon

Cavalon spray sorted DSs bum whilst in hospital.

Camomile tea. Get about 6 tea bags 250ml of hot water and let it cool. Dab it on with cotton wool and leave to air dry for long as possible.

Another vote for Weleda Calendula

Metanium etc are barrier creams. They are designed to withstand water. They act as a barrier against water. If you apply them and then try to wash them off with water and cotton wool etc you actually tear the skin and make it worse.
As already mentioned use oil and cotton wool to remove the cream. And only remove what you have to. You want to leave the cream on for as long as possible.
Makes a big difference . I’m a nurse and we used this technique with great results on adults on our ward.

Thank you all so much for your advice. We had a bit of an explosive disaster with nappy-free time this morning, but we have a delivery of products recommended here arriving this afternoon, so I'm hopeful of improvement soon!

Use bicarbonate of soda in his bath, and then Bathe with cool camomile tea instead of baby wipes at nappy changes, and use metonium (probably spelt.wrong but the yellow tube) afterwards. My daughter suffered terribly, and bled once from it and the above sorted her out perfectly and stopped it getting so sore again x