Bathing your kid twice a day .... is it me? Am I an evil step mother.

[lickencivers]

I’ve gained two lovely step children. One of which suffers from pretty horrific eczema. Especially on hands (all cracked open at the knuckles etc). Whilst I have dry skin myself I have zero experience of this sort of stuff with my own DC.

DP and their mum seem to be using a lot of steroid based cream and epiderm but it doesn’t do a thing to ease him.

I’ve suggested alternative things (like putting porridge oats in a sock in the bath) as helped the itching when Mine had chicken pox etc

However, they bath their kids normally twice a day. If not twice then definitely religiously every night. Without fail. Gina Ford babies —I didn’t do routine either— any way. Any help or advice? Because I’m getting ulcers biting my tongue.

I know some people with eczema are now advised to bathe daily, but is there any treatment regime that would advise it twice? There is quite a big difference between the two.

Frequent bathing is a perfectly reasonable treatment for eczema. nationaleczema.org/eczema/treatment/bathing/

Deciding unilaterally that you disagree because you're a paramedic (do paramedics attend a lot of calls for eczema?) seems unhelpful and ill informed. If you don't attend their medical appointments, even if they were a year ago, what makes you think you know more about their treatment plan than their mother, who does?

I'm glad you've agreed it's none of your business.

both of mine have eczema and dermatitis. we bath once a week, maximum twice (wet flannel in between). everything more and the eczema gets a lot worse

@PCohle bit it doesn’t seem
to work. eczema reacts to duffel things, so if ine doesn‘t work, you need to try something else! . and bathing twice a day is fairly extreme!

If it doesn't seem to be working then by all means speak to the dermatologist again.

Ignoring specialist advice because you think you know best because you're a paramedic doesn't strike me as helpful.

@PCohle the mention of me being a paramedic was due to me being accused of being medically ignorant. I’m not.

I do get called to patients who are suffering despite following treatment plans that aren’t working.

Any way this morning we have had a 2 hour tantrum from 6 year old as he wants a bath and is repeatedly saying he feels dirty. Think the issue is much deeper than eczema. DP has read some stuff re steriods use and is now a bit concerned about how much is used on the children for everything. He’s emailed mum. He’s phoned and booked a GP appt too. Maybe just maybe they’ll get some further assessment and help.

“Ignoring specialist advice because you think you know best because you're a paramedic doesn't strike me as helpful.“

I haven’t. I have kept out of it. I’ve left dp to parent his kids with their mum. I have literally bitten my tongue. What I’ve also done is made suggestion after suggestion that the treatment isn’t working and I’ve bought creams which my Dc use to use alongside their treatment. If a 4 yr old is sobbing because hands are peeling and he can’t pick things up, dp is at work and their mother won’t speak to me - which is the case of last week, I smothered his hands in child’s farm and put socks on them. This was repeated all day. This helped his hands, stopped him crying.

I would be rather worried about kids panicking and feeling dirty if they go a few hours without a bath, even if twice daily is the recommended treatment. That suggests something is wrong, not necessarily the treatment itself. They need to be able to understand they're not dirty and that's not what eczema is.

I'd also agree it's a good idea to seek further expert medical advice if it's been 12 months and they're still suffering. Whatever the condition.

You do seem fairly medically ignorant if you think children with eczema being bathed often is bafflingly stupid.

If you've kept out of it then great. You posted here for "help or advice". My advice was to carry keeping out of it, by following their medically advised treatment plan.

I'm not sure why you want praise for not leaving a child in your care in pain?

You are right.
Look up wet wraps.

I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but the temperature of the bath is also a factor in whether it upsets the skin, with hotter being worse. Frankly, a 2 minute, slightly-warmer-than-luke-warm-water shower each day is all my skin will cope with, anything more and it starts getting sore. I can't imagine a full on bath twice a day! If a skin specialist has recommended bathing, then fine, but it may be worth getting them to check the water is at a sensible temperature.

So she just blindly carries on following a routine that isn't working? Because it obviously isn't...
Surely that's neglect? That's like carrying on with a treatment plan for allergies and letting someone have repeated allergic reactions
If I had cracked, sore, bleeding hands for a YEAR with no improvement, I would have been back and asked for another referral/googled/tried new things

How do you know it's not working though? OP hasn't told us what the kids' skin was like before the bathing treatment was implemented. Maybe she doesn't know either.

At least one bath a day

Source:
nationaleczema.org/eczema/treatment/bathing/

Totally normal treatment for eczema. Nothing baffling or stupid about it.

Had you skipped a regular bath when your dss was so upset or did he want an extra one?

@PCohle because if it's still bleeding, it's not good enough

People with eczema shouldn't even bath once a day. Not sure what you can do though.

As I said "If it doesn't seem to be working then by all means speak to the dermatologist."

Blithely having a go at treatment because you think is best is unlikely to be in the children's best interests.

In glad you blew up at your DH. For me, it’s a case of - this is causing actual pain to your children. Clearly this regime is not working.

My suggestion would be slather them in aqueous cream and then rinse in the shower. In and out in a couple of minutes. And make sure these steps (from the linked site) are followed:

Take a bath using lukewarm (not hot) water for five to 10 minutes. Use a gentle cleanser (no soaps) and avoid scrubbing the affected skin.
After bathing, pat the skin lightly with a towel leaving it slightly damp.
Apply prescription topical medication to the affected areas of skin as directed.
Within three minutes, liberally apply a moisturizer all over the body. It’s important to apply the moisturizer within three minutes or the skin may become even drier.
Wait a few minutes to let the moisturizer absorb into the skin before dressing or applying wet wraps.

Also, see if you can get some Medihoney cream. It’s quite expensive but is available on prescription. I found it amazing for when my hands were cracked and bleeding but not necessarily infected - the fucibet cream is for infections not just for eczema.

@PCohle disagree totally. This is a skin condition, and chronic or not, it’s not like discontinuing a suggested path is going to cause major injury or death. At best, trying a different method before you see a derm will give some relief; at worst, it makes it worse and therefore you discontinue.

Eczema isn’t a ‘it gets worse before it gets better’. It either helps, has no effect, or makes it worse.

Take a bath using lukewarm (not hot) water for five to 10 minutes. Use a gentle cleanser (no soaps) and avoid scrubbing the affected skin.
After bathing, pat the skin lightly with a towel leaving it slightly damp.
Apply prescription topical medication to the affected areas of skin as directed.
Within three minutes, liberally apply a moisturizer all over the body. It’s important to apply the moisturizer within three minutes or the skin may become even drier.
Wait a few minutes to let the moisturizer absorb into the skin before dressing or applying wet wraps.

I have a feeling that this routine is what they are currently doing and that “does her head in”. Mainly because the kids hate it apparently, except now they tantrum because they can’t do it

Actually I don’t think it matters whether baths are or aren’t recommended for eczema. This regime is not working. We started with Fucibet and epiderm. Did nothing, ended up with elidel and aveeno works brilliant. Kid needs a new routine and not to be told they are dirty. OP did exactly the right thing in pointing this out to her partner. Hopefully they can now get that poor kid a new routine.

Bathing is bad for eczema, twice a day is excessive for anyone unless visibly dirty for eczema pro e skin it will make it worse surely their GP/ specialist nurse would have explained this to them?

@ArfArfBarf but it isn’t working! eczema is no „one size treatment fits all” thing. ypu need to find out what helps, and if a 4 year olds hands crack so badly thry can’t puck up things, its really, really bad!

Good on you @lickencivers for getting involved - child welfare should be everyone's concern. Seeing the GP sounds like an excellent plan as clearly the current treatment plan isn't working.

Yes I’m sure she can tell the dermatologist that he’s unnecessarily prescribing a cream for treating secondary bacterial infection when to her expert eyes the skin “doesn’t look infected”

Of course, because bathing in porridge is obviously going to work far better than those nasty creams and chemicals. As if the NHS would spend millions on medication for a condition which can be managed solely with breakfast cereal and an off the shelf moisturiser based on anecdotal -it worked for me- evidence.

He sort of nods along and then ignores me and baths them out of habit I think.
I'd find it hard to be in a relationship with someone who disregarded what I said to this extent.

But she can disregard what he has said? That the mum is clear on her instructions and he would rather follow them.

It’s gone from OP not being arsed to do two baths a day to child abuse with them bleeding and screaming in pain.

It could be that the “bath” that’s been advised is a quick dip in a bath with an emmoliant whereas DH is scrubbing them clean and that’s the problem. But in any case, he is quite right to ignore the OP’s constant “advice” about it and follow their mother’s instructions as they are the parents and despite what is being written by the OP they aren’t being abused. The OP is clear that she actually doesn’t know how you should treat it other than “the Internet says”