So, this battle took place over 6 weeks or so and I think I finally
have beaten it in to submission. I originally didn't know what it was
since it didn't look anything like the pictures on the internet. It
kept coming and going as I treated her rash with California Baby diaper
cream, which is normally good stuff, but not really the right tool for
the job when dealing with yeast. I finally had my pediatrician look at
it when I took DD for her 12 month well visit since she happened to be
having a flare up at the time. He prescribed Nystatin, so we treated it
with that. We switched to disposables at the time. Well, it cleared
up for a little while, but then came roaring back. Poor girl didn't
even want me touching her. I'm convinced that part of the problem was
that around this time, we were also told to introduce cow's milk and I
think that made her stools really loose. So, another call to the doctor
and another prescription. We laid off the cow's milk until her stools
returned to normal and treated the rash with this new concoction in
disposables. Again, the rash went away for a while and then came back.
During this time, I had also researched how to treat yeast in cloth
diapers and found this blog post that was very informative:
Killing the dreaded Yeast monster. I followed her procedure for disinfecting the diapers:
- cold wash with Tea Tree Oil (3-4 drops in a FL, 4-6 drops in a TL. add to detergent compartment for FL)
- hot wash with an oxygen cleaner (Vaska OxygenBleach
or Bio Kleen Oxygen Bleach Plus
are options)
- lay out in FULL sun (if you live in the south this isn’t a problem) or dry on HIGH heat.
I started out using Tea Tree Oil and used the Bio Kleen Oxygen
Bleach. I think the tea tree oil definitely killed the yeast in the
diapers, but I had a little problem with this routine.
So, back to DD rash, which was being treated by prescription in
disposables at the time. It started coming back, so I thought we were
back to our original problem of DD's allergy to disposables used too
extensively, so I switched back to cloth and started treating with
coconut oil. It didn't get worse, but it didn't go away, so I started
using coconut oil mixed with a little tea tree oil just in case it was
the yeast monster again. Well, that just made things worse. So.. after
doing more research on the internet, I discovered that some babies will
have a reaction to tea tree oil. So, finally I get to the miracle of
miracles... I ordered
Better Butt(er) Cream from Northern Essence.
That finally made everything go away. That stuff is seriously awesome.
I had to strip and disinfect DD's diapers again to get the tea tree oil out and this time using
Grapefruit Seed Extract. I have been adding about 30 drops of GSE to
the final rinse of every diaper load for 2 weeks after the last rash
appeared just be sure it doesn't make a comeback. I think I finally
have it beat down.
