I've mentioned before that Monkey has a weird medical condition that his urine literally burns his skin. Well that's not the only issue he's had when it comes to diapering. As a newborn disposable diapers and wipes hurt his bum. He eventually developed an allergy to disposables. Kangaroo was allergic to all baby wipes from birth-the plan was to get through meconium in disposables. Fortunately he got through meconium quick and we were able to use cloth intermittently until the disposables were gone from the hospital (using cloth wipes all the time).
Back to Monkey-I noticed by the time he was a year he was totally sensitive and allergic to disposables-whenever he wore one he'd get big bumps all over his bum. By the time he was about 15 months he developed his weird medical condition. I knew all along it was something in his urine (my husband who is a chemist agreed and knew when he smelled his urine something was up). The ER doctor (had to take him to get his bladder emptied with a catheter) said he just had yeast and a staph infection. 3 different doctors at the Pediatrician's office recommended various elimination diets and to see an allergist. They also recommended switching to disposables because "cloth holds urine next to their skin" though one said that disposables do too and recommended just keeping with potty training. The allergist was boggled by the condition. Eventually he ended up going to a urologist because (TMI ALERT!) he would scab over and couldn't urinate. Right before we went we had to try yet another catheter-granted this time was about a year later. The urologist gave him a steroid cream to try and take down the swelling on the outside to see if that would help. It didn't. Monkey ended up having a scope to see what was going on after a kidney ultrasound (THAT was fun pregnant, super sick, and trying to wrangle a not-quite-2 1/2-year-old while they did that). He also had a meatomy (TMI again-basically they made the opening larger) and was re-circumcised because in the urologist's words the job they did when he was a newborn looked like they didn't really do anything at all and that extra skin they didn't remove was swelling up and pinching his urethra off. This helped a lot but didn't take care of the root of the problem. He then saw a genetic specialist and she was also stumped but said she knew it was genetic and likely his baby brother would have issues and highly recommended making sure he was circumcised and even said we should keep him in cloth because it seemed to be a lot more breathable and kept the problems down a lot more than in disposables.
So after MUCH experimentation during all of this we found that prefolds (didn't know about flats back then) and wool were our best and most breathable options when he wasn't wearing underwear. I started making wool because of this-learned to knit even. After trying MANY diaper rash creams and detergents (which it wasn't a detergent issue but he is allergic to many of them) we found that Northern Essence Diaper Rash Salve and Better "Butt"er cream are the very best creams plus they don't cause any cloth diaper issues (no build up on pockets, no stains).
Cloth diapers are the REAL solution to help my REAL babies when they have mega sensitivity issues. If you have a sensitive baby I recommend trying at least a few diapers and giving them a few weeks. The very best would be to jump in full time to give baby a break from the disposables (see my last post on how to do this on a tight budget). I know that many families see a big difference-I know it was a huge difference with both of my boys!
***In your comments I WILL NOT accept any debate on our decision or other's decisions to circumcise. This is NOT a post that is open to this kind of debate. We made our decision together and for our second son it was especially based off of Monkey's issues.***
Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a custom Monkey Bunns wool soaker!
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