Day Two of The Boy wearing the Tearless Teething Hazelwood necklace was a busy day full of activity.
We were up early and once again The Boy had a dirty nappy and a very sore bottom. Changing him wasn’t as bad as it was the night before, but it was still a difficult task! I applied more nappy rash cream and worked out how long the necklace had been on for – less than 24 hours at that point, so I decided it wasn’t long enough to say I’d given it a fair try and it wasn’t helping! I got him washed and dressed, then sorted myself out, packed a bag and put him in the pushchair, and we battled against wind and rain to our regular Wednesday-morning group (he munched breakfast biscuits on the way!).
We got there and as usual I had to work quickly to free The Boy from the pushchair and the confines of his jacket and hat as he was keen to jump in and start playing with the other children. At 10 they stopped for a snack and I was a little concerned when I saw it was all fruit. Usually I try to give The Boy plenty of fruit and veg throughout the day, as he can be such a fussy eater at mealtimes, but given how sore his bottom had been and knowing what an affect fruit can have on him, I was a bit worried. I put a variety of fruit onto his plate which he quickly polished off, but then he helped himself to more and I had to eventually put a stop to it – he has a passion for grapes, but his already sore bottom told me it wasn’t a good idea for him to eat too many of those! He didn’t seem too fussed by the end of snack time though, and was soon running around again happily.
At snack time I removed his sweater because he was beginning to look a bit hot and rosy cheeked, and at that point his Hazelwood necklace was still in place. It tucked nicely under his t-shirt though, so it wasn’t hanging out for him to fiddle with or for it to get grabbed by another child or caught on something while he was playing. He hadn’t paid it much attention and I didn’t give it another thought until when we were getting ready to leave. The necklace was gone.
After searching the play room, concerned that it may have broken and left pieces on the floor which a child may pick up, and also wanting to see whether the necklace was still in a useable condition since I’d had less than a full days wear out of it, I then frisked The Boy and found that the necklace had come undone and fallen into his vest! I checked it over and it appears to be undamaged – it hasn’t broken anywhere, the clasp still functions and it is in one piece, so I’m not sure whether that is how it is meant to come undone under pressure and something had happened I wasn’t aware of during his time playing, or whether it had worked loose and come undone. Anyway I put it back on him and did it back up again tightly. This means that for an unknown period of time throughout the day, between 10am and 12pm, the necklace wasn’t fastened around his neck, but it was against the skin on his back (in direct contact with where some of the worst of his eczema is) and looking at the company website that may have been more beneficial as they say to wear the Hazelwood as close to the affected area as possible!
He wasn’t very interested in lunch when we got home, which I put down to all the fruit he’d scoffed at snack time and all the running around he’d done making him more tired than usual earlier in the day. Sure enough when he was put down for a nap shortly after one, he fell asleep almost immediately. Usually his nap time isn’t til about three. However he woke up just before three so his nap wasn’t as long as usual, but again he had a messy nappy that needed to be dealt with, and I’m fairly sure it was the discomfort of that which caused him to wake up, as he was still rubbing his face and acting like he was tired for some time after waking up.
Again the nappy change was challenging because by this point the rash was open and bleeding. He was screaming, thrashing around and generally making it very difficult to get him cleaned up and sorted out, though obviously I understand why he was behaving this way! Once he was sorted out I again used a very generous amount of the nappy cream which has always worked well for him in the past but which doesn’t seem to be doing much this time around. I made a mental note to give him some foods to actively bind him up a bit since the loose movements had been ongoing by this point for three days and wasn’t improving, and each time it made the nappy rash worse.
Over the course of the afternoon, another two messy nappy changes, another two temper tantrums and tears over it being done. That evening as usual he had a bath, and as usual after his bath I coated his bottom in the nappy rash cream and coated the rest of him in Oilatum lotion.
In a previous blog entry I wrote about the skin problems The Boy has, and how we’ve been using Oilatum to keep his eczema under control. Recently he was prescribed a steroid based cream to use for a week due to a particularly bad bought of eczema – the steroid based cream worked brilliantly, cleared it up almost entirely within three days, and after a week of use it was practically gone. Unfortunately since swapping back to the Oilatum lotion again patches have returned, though at this point not anything major in comparison to what it has been like in the past. The Tearless Teething ladies at the Baby Show stand where I brought the Hazelwood necklace from assured me that eczema was a very common complaint due to the acidity levels in the body and that plenty of other Tearless Teething customers had found that the necklace helped clear it up by stabilising those acidity levels. At the point of getting The Boy into his pyjamas following his bath last night, I could see no improvement to the eczema on his back, nor any worsening. I applied Oilatum cream as normal, being careful to avoid the Hazelwood necklace (I was advised by the Tearless Teething ladies that Oilatum should not be allowed in direct contact with the Hazelwood necklace, and while they did explain to me why at the time I can’t honestly remember now so that’s something I’ll have to ask them to clarify again!)
So, at the end of Day 2 I can’t see a radical change – the necklace was placed on him at on Day 1 and by bedtime on Day 2 his nappy rash was still very sore and his eczema still evident. Let’s see how we progress in the days to come!
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