Help - family want me to abandon cloth due to ds sore willy

[weasle]

My 19 month old has been in cloth since 5 weeks old. We use bumbles and toddle-ease now both with paper liners. I dry pail and wash usually at 40 with occasional 60 degree.

His foreskin has been red and inflammed on and off for months. Now it has been bad for 6 weeks and is even sometimes bleeding. Am worried he will need a circ. eventually. He also gets little 'spots' on his scrotum and rest of nappy area. He has had antibiotics but this episode is refusing clear.

My husband and parents-in-law have just sat me down and told me I need to change to disposables or boil or bleach my nappies as they think the nappies have 'a bug' in them that is reinfecting him constantly.

Any tips? Any similar problems? Thanks in advance.

are the "spots" white? I would hazzard a guess at a fungal infection but of course it is impossible to diagnose without seeing. So hard to get rid of in an area that is a lovely damp breeding ground for it I would get a swab taken to check. If it is thrush your nappies really could do witha good boil wash...I wouldn't really reccomend it normally but it can be the only way of getting rid of candida in nappies (just checking that you have the cotton toddle ease not the new bamboo ones though). I swear by acidophilus pro biotic supplements for thrush, I have a complete nightmare with and often find that pharmacutical treatments alone do not work. If thrush is diagnosed the acidophulus are safe for toddles, just break open the capsule and sprinkle of his food. Really think it would be a good idea to find the root cause of the problem, it may be that the clothisn't helping, but if you do change to disps and it doesn't clear up just think of the extra time your Ds will have had this rash without treatment, good luck

would also guess thrush here. i am prone to it and gp advised to boil was all underwear as 4o/60 will not kill it. im guessing the same applies to nappies. so, canestan for both of you, boil the heck out of everything, then see is my advice!

and the other thing that helped DS1 when he got sore was a chamomile teabag in the bath.

[it may have already been said, so sorry if so] but in my mind washable vs disposable nappies is akin to cotton vs nylon pants

Thanks very much all for posting. I will wash all nappies at 60 from now on and have bought some bio-soaking stuff i will give a try. I have taken a swab today and he is one some antibiotics again. I might try canestan if it doesn't look better in a couple of days although it doesn't look fungal to me.

Moondog - i agree, GPs would not really know much about this! (mil is one). Twit monster - that's what I keep saying to the family! Thanks curlywurly, will try those capsules myself.

I never thought thrush nappy rash actually looked fungal either but canestan cleared it up all the same!

I find it hard to believe that your cloth nappies could be at fault here - although I would definitely wash at 60, maybe there is a lingering bug.....

My DD1 was in disposables until she was potty trained and DD2 (now 9 months) has been in cloth since she was a couple of weeks old. DD1 had a couple of terrible bouts of nappy rash, red, raw, weepy and bleeding, awful (Dr prescribed daktarin which cleared it in a couple of days so it must have been fungal). DD2 has also had one hideous bout of nappy rash and occasional less dramatic flare ups. i.e. what I am saying is that in my experience the incidence of nappy rash has been pretty much the same for both cloth and disposables.

I find fleece liners (or better still a nappy that is fully fleece lined) work miracles on nappy rash. Also I use metanium if a rash flares up and it hasn't stained my nappies.

Good luck.

actually, most of my nappies are fleece lined now that I think of it, and if not I always used the fleece liners, except for the nursery where they like the paper ones!

If you do decide to try disposables have a look at moltex - think the website is little green earthlets. They are bleach/chemical free

I would definitely suggest washing at 60. My ds had a persistent nappy rash when I used to wash at 40 as soon as I changed to 60 it all cleared up.