Day Five of The Boy wearing his Tearless Teething Hazelwood necklace was a fairly lazy day. While we were up quite early we lounged in our PJ’s on the sofa – me with the laptop going, him playing with a selection of vehicles with wheels!
His first nappy change of the day had been wet but not dirty – his necklace was still in place when I went into him and he had woken chirpy and chatty. He nattered away contentedly while I worked, and we took a break for a late breakfast at about half ten. I decided to change him for good measure, but the nappy was only wet and not dirty. Since he hadn’t had a dirty nappy all day yesterday, I was beginning to get concerned that he’d gone too far the other way and was now constipated, so for breakfast he had whole-wheat hoops, and a handful of sultanas and apple. After eating as much as he fancied, The Boy tipped the bowl of whole-wheat hoops over himself (comedy moment – The Boy giggling away as milk drips from the end of his nose and I notice absent mindedly that he has a whole-wheat hoop in his ear) He was attempting to drink the milk from the bowl – but the cereal wasn’t finished yet and he didn’t touch the bowl to his lips – he’d just brought it closer to himself and tipped it. As a result once I extracted him from the highchair and brushed off the stray whole-wheat hoops I realised he needed a change of clothes. Upstairs, his nappy wasn’t even wet, so I dressed him and we returned downstairs.
At this point, I’d like to say that first thing in the morning this morning his eczema was almost non existent on his back – normally the worst affected area – he had small patches, about the size of penny pieces, that were slightly dry and scaly to the touch, but it was a huge improvement over this time last week and a massive improvement in comparison to the day before he was prescribed steroid cream for a week. His nappy rash first thing on Day Five was still slightly pink, but the raised bumps had disappeared and so had the bleeding spots. He was compliant and content each time I changed him and the whole ‘nappy changing’ experience has gone back to the stress free routine of old, rather than the screaming fits we’ve been having more recently. Still, eczema and nappy rash is present, so I am continuing to use his Oilatum cream and nappy rash cream. Should either or both the conditions clear up completely, I will stop using the appropriate cream and see whether we have any issues, but at the moment I don’t feel it is fair on him to cease using the lotions, as it clearly makes it more comfortable for him once they’ve been applied.
Anyway, the day wore on and we lounged around, mid-afternoon I took him upstairs for a nappy change because I thought I could smell a dirty nappy. Any fears of him being constipated flew out of the window as I discovered the nappy was pretty gruesome – he was definitely not constipated. However while he wasn’t exactly happy to have me cleaning him up, it wasn’t a screaming battle of wills with him kicking me and trying to grab at the contents of his nappy with his hands; he simply moaned a bit but on the whole he laid there and allowed me to do what needed doing. The nappy rash was slightly more obvious again after the clean-up, but still wasn’t bright red, or bumpy, or bleeding. I applied more cream, a fresh nappy, and he went down for a nap.
After his nap his nappy was wet, so I changed it, and the nappy rash had gone back again to a paler pink. One fresh nappy later we were downstairs playing; eventually play time turned into dinner time, and after dinner we went upstairs to play before bathtime. On the way upstairs I thought the bottom of his jeans felt wet, but then when I felt it again I couldn’t find it, so I thought I’d been mistaken – half an hour of playing later, The Boy began to wiggle about and pat at his bottom as if he was uncomfortable. By that point I was running the bath, so waited until I was ready then went to change him. For the second time today his nappy was awful – the bottom of his jeans had been damp as I suspected, unfortunately. The cuffs around the leg holes of his vest were marked and the nappy had obviously had a hard job containing everything (no disrespect to the nappy – I’m not sure many others would have done as good a job under the circumstances!)
Cleaning him up was difficult, as he kicked about a lot more than he had done all day and made more of a fuss about it, but initially I didn’t think the damage was too bad – again it was pinker than it had been, but no raised bumps. Unfortunately a moment later I noticed a spot of blood swelling from the skin – so he hadn’t escaped completely unscathed, and another moment later there were a couple more blood spots I could see. After his bath, I applied Oilatum cream to his torso as his lumbar region and left shoulder appeared worse than they had done earlier in the day. I put nappy cream on his nappy rash as that also had become worse again. Having said that, the nappy rash isn’t anywhere near as bad as I was thinking it would be when I first saw that nappy!
Once in his PJ’s and cuddled up in the glow of the night light, The Boy seemed perfectly content to drink his milk and slowly drift off to sleep. His nappy rash is vastly improved and so is his eczema, though at this point I don’t feel I can conclude it’s because of the necklace particularly – while it seems co-incidental that this improvement has occurred this week, perhaps it would have happened this week anyway, following our rigorous past four weeks of applying the Oilatum cream on a twice-daily basis. We’ll have to see what happens!
No comments:
Post a Comment