Keeping baby's bottom dry

[M4rv1n]

Hi All,

First time freaked out parent with a two week old baby.

Just noticed a bit of nappy rash. Read that it is very important to dry the bottom after wiping with baby wipes. Can I use a clean piece of cloth, flannel, muslin etc.? Do I need to use fresh piece of cloth to dry baby's bottom every time or can I reuse the cloth I used to dry the bottom previously?

Probably a stupid question, but any advice will do.

Use any dry small cloth. like you said, a flannel, muslin, clean tea towel etc..
I would re-use the cloth for the day for drying.

I always just let my babys bum air dry for a minute or two before I put the new nappy on

Depends on the baby wipes too. We use the tesco own ones as they aren't too wet so never needed to dry. I hate the huggies ones for example because they are so wet and doesn't really do a good job cleaning poop.

We used water wipes on our newborns and never had any rash issues. They are expensive though

Avid wipes user here. But for my next, I would use water and a flannel/cotton pads for the first few weeks, all that poop and wipes is a recipe for disaster in my experience. Metanium is brilliant for clearing up a rash once it's appeared :)

I have a 5 month old and I have always just used warm water and cotton wool balls to clean bum and a flannel to dab dry.
Use a clean flannel each day.
If it's a pooh I use dry cotton wool pads to wipe up the pooh first (realised early on that adding water to pooh was not a good idea lol)
I also put sudacream on every nappy change.
So far my baby hasn't had a sore bum.

Why not use just toilet paper for first wipe, it can go straight down the loo, followed by a wet flannel for anything that's left and towel dry.
Fresh flannel every time, but same towel for the day.

Wipes just make the rush worst. Please use cotton wool and warm water all the time.
My kids never had any nappy rush.
But my friends kids, sil kids etc they all have it and it was just so painful to watch.
Wipe it with whatever you like just don't use wipes

Hi Yorkshiremum17, i agree it would be a lot better for the environment and I'm up for new ideas but where would you put the dirty toilet paper while your in the middle of changing bum ?
All dirty cotton wool goes into the dirty nappy while changing and is wrapped up and poped in the bin.
Also with 10 nappy changes aday that's alot of flannels.
I may try it tomorrow though and see how practical it is.

I agree with the suggestion to use cotton wool and water instead of wipes (we use water wipes when out and about), I usually use a burp cloth to dry and they go in the wash each night, sometimes I use cotton wool to dry though. I find cotton wool pads a lot better than the balls. As far as cream goes I think different kinds of skin will react differently to nappy creams. My eldest was best with bepanthen but my youngest needs prescribed eczema cream for nappy rash, nothing else helped, apart from hydrocortisone cream we had to use when it was very bad. Metanium and sudocream never helped either of mine, but I used to work in a nursery and found both very good on other kids.

Never had a single bout of nappy rash on DS 18 months.

Used cotton wool and warm water for 5 months, then water wipes. Would do the same again.

We use reusable wet wipes and they are brilliant and are really coming into their own on quarantine add lockdown!!! However, we had a phase of nappy rash that was persistent and just looked so painful. The advice from our doctor was to always use mild soap to wash her and then to rinse it with a clean wet cloth. It was miraculous and was gone within a day and a half never to return! We've kept up the soap and water cleaning and have never had another problem.

Just air dry here. Used whatever wipes were on special that week. Wipe, leave nappy off while you have a little play/chat, bums dry& put new nappy on.
Hardly any nappy rash with either of them but when they did have it found Caldespray (Caldesene?) Spray good because it's a spray, no need to rub cream on top of sore skin.

Another vote for avoiding wet wipes while they’re little and in the non-stop poo phase. For big messes I often use a wipe but then use a damp cotton pad to clean off any chemicals. Also agree that air (ie nappy off time) is key. We like the Weleda cream.

Hi, thanks for your replies. We use water wipes (big box on Amazon), rather than baby wipes. I tried air drying after wiping, but that takes a bit longer than drying with a cloth and our little one usually manages to sprinkle a bit of wee when being air dried.

We will also do as much nappy free time as possible.

Astraj It's a long while ago for us now (DS is nearly 16) we cloth nappied, so the loo roll just sat on the cloth nappy until he was done and then took to the loo and flushed. You could do the same with disposables, just wrap it up once you're rid of the loo paper. We also used reusable wipes, but if you don't have them then flannels are the next best thing. The wipe just went in the nappy bucket for the next load of washing.