The baby baths were really awkward for me too. What we ended up doing was putting some towels down on the kitchen floor, then putting the baby tub on top of them. There was a lot more room to maneuver on the floor instead of leaning over the adult tub too.
Why did we not think of this? We have plenty of room in the bathroom to put the tub on the floor! We will do this tonight.
How did I miss the rash? The room where we change DD is not the most brightly lit room in our apartment. I suspect she had this rash before we noticed it because she had been screaming for over a week at diaper changes, but we thought she had just learned to use her vocal cords and decided she hated diaper changes. It never occurred to us there would be a diaper rash.
I noticed redness late Friday morning when the room is the brightest and immediately I took her over to another room with better light to see what was going on. I had scheduled an appointent with a visiting nurse to come that day and she showed up like a few minutes after I moved DD to the brighter room and was so helpful about the rash and other topics. She mentioned that we might have missed the rash earlier not just because of the lighting situation, but also because with DD's skin tone, red rashes don't necessarily jump out right away unless you are looking for them or they get pretty bad.
I will see what they do with the diaper at the next visit and go from there.
ETA - she does check hip flexion but has done this with the diaper on.
Does your baby have darker skin? Redness is much harder to detect on dark skin as opposed to light. Even for my super pale baby I needed to buy a lamp that sits on the dresser at his butt end. I would recommend making a habit of checking the skin closely at least once a day. My DS was prone to diaper rashes and they can get bad quickly. If you are having a hard time seeing, sometimes you can feel a raised area of skin if you gently rub your finger over the area.
I definitely don't think any of this should be blamed on the pedi. Especially if you were only there for a well-check. It's okay that you guys missed this one, now you know what to look for. It sounds like you are on top of things now but if you need any diaper rash help lots of us have good tips.
If the rash isn't bad enough to see easily, then I'm not sure why anyone is freaking out about the pedi "missing it". Babies get rashes, sometimes they go away easily, sometimes you need diaper cream, sometimes they get worse, but it's usually not a huge deal. I obviously don't know your kid, but lots of babies scream like hell during diaper changes with or without rashes. I highly highly doubt your kid had a diaper rash causing screaming for over a week and you didn't notice it. Give yourself more credit. I'm glad the nurse was helpful - it sounds like she didn't think the rash was a big deal either.
As for the bath and light issue, why does it matter what your husband thinks about giving baths? If you want to give a bath in the sink and he wants to do it in the tub, then you can bathe her in the sink and he can bathe her in the tub. You don't need to agree on every single baby care issue. Go on Amazon and order a bath sponge and put her in the sink on it. Or get in the tub with her. Put a couple of lamps in your cart while you are at it until you can get the overhead light situation sorted out. Throw money at your problems in these first few weeks.
Thank you. I didn't think it was a big deal at all that the Pediatrician "missed" it because common sense told me that diaper rashes are a common thing and if it didn't get better or looked worse by Monday, I would bring her in to have them look. It was my mom who freaked out and nagged me about this pediatrician thing the whole entire weekend until I finally yelled PLEASE STOP. My dad, the calm parent, took note of the crappy lighting and will find me a lamp that fits the changing table space. My husband and I give her the baths together. He gets the stuff set up and ready and I do the actual bathing. I think he doesn't understand that the tub we got on our registry is for a bigger infant and is just excited to use the "baby tub" on the baby. He has never been around any babies before and is not intuitive about a lot of this baby stuff. But we will be moving the bath operation to the floor now thanks to the helpful tip on here.
And we will not mention a word about this rash to my MIL who would be 10x worse than my mother was with her (not) advice and paranoia.
Does your baby have darker skin? Redness is much harder to detect on dark skin as opposed to light. Even for my super pale baby I needed to buy a lamp that sits on the dresser at his butt end. I would recommend making a habit of checking the skin closely at least once a day. My DS was prone to diaper rashes and they can get bad quickly. If you are having a hard time seeing, sometimes you can feel a raised area of skin if you gently rub your finger over the area.
I definitely don't think any of this should be blamed on the pedi. Especially if you were only there for a well-check. It's okay that you guys missed this one, now you know what to look for. It sounds like you are on top of things now but if you need any diaper rash help lots of us have good tips.
She does have darker skin which is what the visiting nurse mentioned about why we may have missed it.
Dd is weighed naked and the pedi checks her diaper area (don't remember if she still does but she did under a year for sure).
That said, I HIGHLY doubt your dd had a rash on Wednesday that wasn't noticed until Friday. Diaper rashes go from 0-60 very, very fast. The fact that your mom flipped out is so strange. Is she unstable? Probe to overreaction? Bc, really, her reaction is way over the top.
How did I miss the rash? The room where we change DD is not the most brightly lit room in our apartment. I suspect she had this rash before we noticed it because she had been screaming for over a week at diaper changes, but we thought she had just learned to use her vocal cords and decided she hated diaper changes. It never occurred to us there would be a diaper rash.
I noticed redness late Friday morning when the room is the brightest and immediately I took her over to another room with better light to see what was going on. I had scheduled an appointent with a visiting nurse to come that day and she showed up like a few minutes after I moved DD to the brighter room and was so helpful about the rash and other topics. She mentioned that we might have missed the rash earlier not just because of the lighting situation, but also because with DD's skin tone, red rashes don't necessarily jump out right away unless you are looking for them or they get pretty bad.
I will see what they do with the diaper at the next visit and go from there.
ETA - she does check hip flexion but has done this with the diaper on.
If the rash isn't bad enough to see easily, then I'm not sure why anyone is freaking out about the pedi "missing it". Babies get rashes, sometimes they go away easily, sometimes you need diaper cream, sometimes they get worse, but it's usually not a huge deal. I obviously don't know your kid, but lots of babies scream like hell during diaper changes with or without rashes. I highly highly doubt your kid had a diaper rash causing screaming for over a week and you didn't notice it. Give yourself more credit. I'm glad the nurse was helpful - it sounds like she didn't think the rash was a big deal either.
As for the bath and light issue, why does it matter what your husband thinks about giving baths? If you want to give a bath in the sink and he wants to do it in the tub, then you can bathe her in the sink and he can bathe her in the tub. You don't need to agree on every single baby care issue. Go on Amazon and order a bath sponge and put her in the sink on it. Or get in the tub with her. Put a couple of lamps in your cart while you are at it until you can get the overhead light situation sorted out. Throw money at your problems in these first few weeks.
This. My kid has very sensitive skin and gets little red bumps around the top of the diaper often. A little bit of powder clears it up pretty quick. My pedi noticed and gave us a prescription for some cream when it flares. If he doesn't cry when he poops and I don't notice within 10 minutes he will get diaper rash, just the nature of his skin. I use Carona ointment and it goes away overnight. Desitin did nothing for us.
Rashes happen, especially if the baby has sensitive skin. Now you know and can find what works best for you, but don't beat yourself up over it.
Oh yeah, and let me add that my husband noticed the redness on Thursday evening but he didn't know it was diaper rash and thus the source of her pain so he didn't mention anything to me. He told me this after I called him in tears on Friday. From now on we have agreed that we will point oout anything we notice on the baby to the other person so two pairs of eyes can look and make a decision and keep an eye on it.
To improve the rash, we have stopped using commercial wipes and are now only using cotton pads and water to clean her. We have her without a diaper in the daytime when in front of us and a loose diaper otherwise. I bought Pampers "sensitive" diapers or something if that is going to make a difference. It is much better today.
I haven't read all of the replies but I just want to say that even if the pedi noticed the rash, he/she may not necessarily prescribe anything unless it looked like a yeast infection. A lot of babies have diaper rashes at some point and usually diaper rashes go away on their own with stuff like desitin. I usually give it a few days to see if it gets better or worse and only once I went in after a few days to make sure if was something that needed a prescription. I would not freak out about a diaper rash being missed by my pedi. But I would be upset if he/she did not even open the diaper to take a look at the genital area to make sure everything is fine.
ETA: Weighed with dry diaper and my pedi does the hip check thing with the diaper loosely on.
Post by thebreakfastclub on Jan 20, 2014 15:44:28 GMT -5
I can offer that I have no idea on how my DS is weighed. There is no room in my brain to recall this piece of information. Ooops.
Also, at his 2 month appointment, DS had gunk in his belly button and a yeast rash under his armpit, with additional gunk, because I had not bathed his arm pit very well. I felt like a clown who had no business taking care of a baby, but in the end it was no big deal.
I would also definitely move the baby tub on the floor. We only moved the baby tub into the bathtub when DS started sitting up and splashing like a fool.
huh. my pedi has never opened A's diaper to check her. the nurse lets me keep it on to weigh her if it's dry, and then the dr. does his check with just her diaper on. weird. i will ask about this at her 2 month appt.
I'm surprised he doesn't check for adhesions or things like that. I have a boy, so it's different, but my doctor checks to make sure everything is okay with his testicles. Usually it's just a quick peek.
sent, does your tub have an insert for an infant? Can you link which one you have so we can help troubleshoot why it may be difficult to bathe her in it? We put our tub on the vanity (it's large) for a few months and then put it inside our big tub.
Post by undecidedowl on Jan 20, 2014 16:11:01 GMT -5
Also, if your DH doesn't want to put her in the kitchen sink, my baby bathtub actually fits over the sink so we did that for as long as possible because it meant I could stand up rather than crouching. I would even put it on the counter before the floor because wet slippery babies are hard enough to deal with without kneeling over those tubs.
The baby baths were really awkward for me too. What we ended up doing was putting some towels down on the kitchen floor, then putting the baby tub on top of them. There was a lot more room to maneuver on the floor instead of leaning over the adult tub too.
Why did we not think of this? We have plenty of room in the bathroom to put the tub on the floor! We will do this tonight.
Because you have a six-week old baby and therefore have not had a decent night's sleep in over six weeks. It adds up, but gets better.
huh. my pedi has never opened A's diaper to check her. the nurse lets me keep it on to weigh her if it's dry, and then the dr. does his check with just her diaper on. weird. i will ask about this at her 2 month appt.
I'm surprised he doesn't check for adhesions or things like that. I have a boy, so it's different, but my doctor checks to make sure everything is okay with his testicles. Usually it's just a quick peek.
sent, does your tub have an insert for an infant? Can you link which one you have so we can help troubleshoot why it may be difficult to bathe her in it? We put our tub on the vanity (it's large) for a few months and then put it inside our big tub.
Here is the tub, Fisher Price "Whale of a Tub"Whale Tub We dont have a large vanity, the floor seems safer to me.
He was weighed naked. Pedi would unsnap the diaper, check the area, snap the diaper back up, and finished the exam.
And yes, rashes can go from nothing to red blister really fast! DS had a really hard time with rashes when he was about 4-6 weeks, and we did every trick in the book(prescription ointment, only using washcloths, drying with a cool hair dryer, naked time, etc). It turned out it was his MSPI wreaking havoc on his skin.
Post by oregonpachey on Jan 20, 2014 18:33:52 GMT -5
sent, we had that tub too. We used to clear off the kitchen counter and than set the tub on the counter. When we were done, we would just pull the plug and drain it into the kitchen sink. The kitchen counter was the perfect height for us to bathe our kiddos.
Post by littlemisschatty on Jan 20, 2014 20:55:28 GMT -5
Yup we still use the kitchen counter. My bathroom is too tiny.
And tell your mom to relax. Babies get diaper rashes. That's why there are SOOO many products on the market for diaper rash. It is no one's fault geez.
Make sure you are patting the baby clean, not rubbing too hard. And pat dry with a little towel before you close up the diaper. That helped so much when DS was that age.
You are doing fine, don't let others stress you out.
Diaper off for weights, back on, and then the dr checks his testicle placement and fastens it back up. FP doc.
Next month will be his first well child check with the new doctor, who is a pediatrician, so it'll be interesting to see how it differs. It's also a different practice.