On the negative side, Ben has been to three different doctors in the last few months--his regular doctor, an allergist and a dermatologist. He is allergic to more things that I imaged he could be--wheat, eggs--both yolks and whites--, cashews and peanuts and possibly other nuts as well since he hasn't been tested for all of them. His skin is super-sensitive, and we have had a hard time find a good lubricant, soap and shampoo. We switched his Diaper's recently to Earth's Best because the Pamper's Cruisers were irritating him or seeming to. Sometimes, figuring out what is bothering him is like playing Clue but without a card that explains the answers.
But on the bright side, Ben is a happy, healthy baby. He is meeting his milestones. He rolls over both ways and sits up for short periods of time. He is drooling and may be teething. We're going on day 2 and 1/2 of Aquaphor and, so far, no itching.
We have a plan in case Aquaphor fails--Vaseline or zinc oxide or Lubriderm for sensitive skin. We tried Lubriderm Advanced Therapy, and it irritated him. But, eventually, hopefully, his skin will become less sensitive, or, at least he'll be able to tell us what hurts and what does not.
For now, in spite of the daily craziness of caring for a small, mostly helpless being, things are going well.
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Jason Tandon
3 years ago
Mama knows best, but just a little scientific perspective: it's hard to distinguish correlation (i.e. this lotion irritates him versus this diaper irritates him vs. he's having an allergic reaction to a food) if you change more than one thing that a time. Though it's probably killing you to put the same lotion on him again if he seems irritated, if you change the lotion the same day or even the same week as the bathing gel or the shampoo, it's going to be hard to distinguish the culprit. (This is why doctors recommend introducing one food to a baby at a time and waiting a week between new foods, to distinguish allergies.) Perhaps try using *nothing* in one category and the new product in another category, instead of switching more than one product at once? There are plenty of adults who bathe without any soap at all btw. I don't know how you feel about going soapless with Ben, but he's a baby - it's not like he's a sweaty mess or rolling around in dirt.
ReplyDeleteFailing that, as awful as this experience is for you (and Ben, of course), you have an overall happy baby and that's what really counts. Babies deal with lots of annoyances, including teething. He's gonna be fine someday. :-)
Those are good suggestions. But we definitely don't want to keep using a lotion if it causes instant irritation like an immediate rash. We are going back to Cerave since it does not cause immediate irritation. He was scratching with it on last night, but that may be because his neck, which tends to be the most irritated, was so dry. We don't use soap right now, just oatmeal bath and then shampoo about once a week, but so far all the soaps/shampoos that we use on his head dry it out. This last one didn't seem to cause a rash at least. Also, we are pretty sure that Vaseline does not irritate, and olive oil seems to moisturize his head. I think we'll figure it out--eventually. I just wish that eventually was sooner.
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