Itchy eczema babies = compulsory night wakings?? any sleep tips??

[eskimomama]

I'm becoming very confused with my DD (8 mo)'s eczema... I'm still BFing and on a strict diet excluding dairy, eggs, gluten and nuts (her confirmed allergies so far)... and just recently her eczema got terrible again. And I have no idea why...

Maybe the new baby lotion...which I had been using for 2/3 weeks...

Or maybe because she caught roseola last week (fever made her sweat)...

Consequently she's very very itchy at night, keeps scratching (or wanting to scratch) her neck most especially, and we don't sleep well at all!!
Her naps are ok though.

Any shared experience for itchy babies at night would be most welcome!
Is there any hope or do you have to just wait until the bad eczema goes??

ps - can't use scratch mitts, it's too hot already and she takes them off all the time...

Could she be teething? my DC's eczema always got worse when they were teething.

If it's really bad your GP can give antihistimane to help her sleep.

My youngest ds had terrible eczema about the same age so i know how you are feeling.I think it just sometimes flares up for no apparent reason so I'm sure your doing all you can.We bought our ds a very light pure organic sleeping bag and before he went into it at night we used to absolutely smear him all over with aqueous cream which used to help him sleep and stop itching.Funnily enough once he hit about 1 year old his eczema just seemed to disappear without a trace.With hindsight i think perhaps it was the baby formula because it seemed to stop when we moved him to cows milk.

I had piriton prescribed for my 9 month old. I am not convinced it makes a huge amount of difference to his scratching. I don't know if there are other anti-histimines he can try?

I would love to know what the miracle solution to help him is too. At the moment I try to keep him cool at night - he is currently sleeping in a pillowcase. He has just water or water and oats in a muslin in his bath. No lotions except those prescribed. We use soapnuts to wash instead of detergent. I'm not restricting any food for him or myself (still bfing) as I couldn't pinpoint anything that made the ezcema worse, so waiting for the result of his RAST. He has had scratchsleeves here for the last few months but agree it is currently far too hot for them.

All this has definitely reduced his discomfort at night but it hadn't stopped the scratching. There are still long hours in the night where he is half awake and scratching so I am awake trying to stop him. I have been wondering if it would be better to get up when the scratching starts, take his mind off it with a story or quiet play and then resettle him back to sleep? Even if it's 3 am, I need to do something as I am a broken woman from the lack of sleep.

dd2 has eczema, and used to scratch v badly at night.

The things I found that helped were:

Aveeno (tried tons of different eczema creams, this was definitely the best - we get it on prescription)

Using non bio washing liquid (as opposed to powder), no fabric conditioner - never change brands!

Don't use any other lotions, creams, baby baths.

Tea tree shampoo for hair (she used to scratch her head really badly)

Piriton if she keeps waking herself with scratching.

When she was little I found cotton socks were better than scratch mitts, they come up the arm longer.

Oat baths - stick a handful of oats in a sock/old muslin fasten with elastic band, throw in bath and squeeze milky goo over skin.

She is 3 now, and her eczema seems much more under control (although she still has flare ups), although she has gone on to develop hayfever and asthma symptoms. We recently got an air purifier for dds bedroom, and it has made a huge difference to hayfever symptoms.

have you been using sun cream? when ds1 was really bad his deratologist suggested that we used E45 suncream and no higher than a factor 20.
also have you used epiderm. its a very thick mositure cream. if you go to the doctors they can prescribe some for you and will be alot cheaper than buying it!
also change of weather used to affect ds1. good luck

thanks all - only using gentle organic creams so far...(Weleda, which I might stop now as I realized it contains sweet almond oil), and Essential Care.

Chutestoonarrow our allergist prescribed Cetirizine supposedly to help her sleep (read reduce the itchiness), it had the opposite effect : she got all excited all night (and soon overtired, such a horrible night). It's only from 2 years, but he had said it was fine... well def not, she had a typical side effect happening when it's given to too young babies...

After I told him he prescribed Loratadine, but 2 different pharmacists didn't want to sell it to me for my DD as they said it is not appropriate for her age. They said only Piriton is ok under 2.

So now I'm paranoid about using anti histamines as a prevention measure...