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Baby Rash and Toddler Rashes
One of the most frustrating conditions for parents, especially new first-time parents, to deal with on babies and toddlers are rashes. The difficulty is that because of their nature, rashes are easy to spot and difficult to ignore. Whether it is skin redness, little spots on baby’s skin, or a rough texture on your toddlers arms or legs, rashes trigger a parent’s instinct to do something to fix it.
Unfortunately, the great majority of toddler rashes and baby rashes are non-specific skin conditions that require no real medical treatment. It is frustrating to take baby to the doctor only to hear them say that it isn’t anything to worry about, and is probably just dryness or an allergic reaction to something.
Online medical research about skin rashes on babies and kids isn’t any more help. About all anyone will find is the advice to try and figure out what is causing the allergic rash and to remove it from the baby’s environment. This isn’t as easy as it sounds and can end up causing even more consternation among parents.
Cure for Baby or Toddler Skin Rashes
Since most rashes are non-medical allergic reactions of the skin, all any parent can do to make them better is try and reduce the allergens in the child’s environment. Fortunately, this can be a relatively simple process for most skin allergies.
Whether it’s red skin, bumpy skin, or rough skin, the culprit is most often either bedding like sheets and blankets, or clothing. The most common causes of such skin reactions is the perfumes, dyes, and preservatives in laundry soaps or bath soaps and other cleaning supplies. Removing these irritants from baby’s life is actually fairly easy.
Healing Rashes With Laundry Soap
First, start by washing all of the child’s clothing AND bedding using Dreft. Other companies make laundry soaps that are supposedly as free of irritants and chemicals as Dreft is, but since there is no way of knowing whether or not the latest “allergen free” or “pure” laundry soap is in fact just as good as Dreft, don’t take the chance just yet. If you want to try a cheaper version of child laundry soap, do it later after you’ve eliminated baby’s rash and can judge whether or not the other laundry soap causes its return.
If comparing two products, always buy the one with no parabens. Parabens may or may not have a cancer risk. However, there is no doubt that parabens are a sign of cheap, low-cost, formulation and manufacturing since their only purpose is to allow a multi-year shelf life.
You can find parabens on the ingredients list. They will have names like methylparaben, propylparaben, or something similar. It doesn’t matter what the chemical name is in front, a paraben is a paraben. So anything-paraben is garbage. If you can’t find a no parabens product, try a health food store or organic food store like Whole Foods.
As a last resort, buy the product that has parabens the closest to the end of the list since ingredients must be listed from most to least by law. You’ll have to make a guess about whether having four different types of parabens lower on the list is better or worse than having one paraben higher on the list since their is no way to now how much they add up to. This is one reason why you are better off just getting something without parabens instead.
Make sure and wash everything baby uses. Otherwise, baby might still have the skin rash because of one blanket even though everything else is not causing any problems.
Be sure to wash any baby bedding including a child’s favorite blanket or wubby or whatever in HOT water. Only hot water kills dust mites which might be the cause of the child’s skin rash.
Use the second rinse feature of your washing machine to give baby’s blankets, sheets, and clothes an additional rinse. Don’t add anything like fabric softener, just get a second water rinse to ensure that everything possible is out.
Next, dry baby’s clothing and bedding without any dryer sheets or other additions to the dryer. Yes, they’ll be staticy and wrinkled, but that isn’t the primary concern for this step.
Continue to do all of your toddler’s laundry in this way so that nothing comes back into contact with him or her that.
Healing Diaper Rash
Also, change baby’s diapers and wipes. Try using one of the Huggies brand diapers if you are using others. No matter what the label says, other diapers like Pampers have some sort of perfume or chemical in them that Huggies don’t seem to have.
To prove it, open a bag of Pampers or other diapers and put them in an enclosed space like a drawer or cabinet with the drawer or door closed. Leave them overnight. Then, open the cabinet and smell inside. You’ll get a whiff of something, and that might be what is causing baby’s diaper rash. (I haven’t experienced the same thing with Huggies, either the regular diapers or the Huggies Comfort Fit diapers.)
Also, switch to one of the “Free” diaper wipes. You want one that has no perfumes AND no dyes.
While you are at it, buy a tube of Lotrimin. Lotrimin is a fungal killer, or fungicide. Most of the really painful looking bright red diaper rashes have some component of yeast infection with them. Using the Lotrimin kills off this element.
Remember to change and wipe baby often when they have a diaper rash. Most diaper rashes are caused by the chemicals in the child’s urine. The longer they stay in contact with the skin, the more likely they are to cause a rash.
To get rid of a diaper rash as fast as possible, use non-perfumed diapers and wipes and change baby a lot. By a lot, I mean too often, maybe every half-hour, but at least every hour, whether the diaper seems full or not.. At each of these diaper changes, put on some of the Lotrimin. This will ensure that the toddler or baby’s skin gets the maximum possible amount of time without any urine chemicals on their skin and also that any yeast is killed without being able to re-spread.
Eliminating Stinky Diaper Pail Smells
When our daughter was first born, we got a Diaper Champ. It has a big piston-type top where you drop the diaper in, and then grab the handle and turn the lid over. The great thing about it is that means you don’t have to open it in order to put a diaper in.
Also, it doesn’t take any special (expensive) plastic bags like the Diaper Genie and assorted knock-offs do.
But, over time, either the plastic started to absorb some of the odors or the seal broke down or whatever, so we tried to replace it with another Diaper Champ. Somewhere in between the first and second one, they redesigned it with an internal plastic ring that holds the trash bag that you put inside. Whether it the plastic bag helped seal the old one, or what, I don’t know, but the new one never held the odors inside. Soon the kitchen smelled and we took it back.
Recently, I found a small brushed metal trash can with a foot pedal that opens the lid. Between the lid and the trash bag liner, it seals in even the smelliest of diaper smells. Unfortunately, when you open it, a blast of stinky air comes out.
The solution? Air fresheners.
Types of Air Fresheners
Most air fresheners are nothing more than perfumes that go into the air as the alcohol in them evaporates. That means you have a sweet smell mixed with a yucky smell. Pass.
What you actually want is not an air “freshener”, but rather an odor eliminator or odor absorber. The key is to get a deodorizer that actually absorbs the bad smells. While many air fresheners claim they absorb bad odors, many do not. The key ingredient to look for is activated charcoal.
For whatever reason, activated carbon, sometimes called activated charcoal, actually absorbs malodors. If you can find it plain, that is without a scented wax or liquid air freshener around it, it can be recharged and ready to absorb more odors just by putting it out in the sunlight. (It has to be sunlight, not just light, and through a window doesn’t seem to work, so outside is the way to go.)
Put one on the inside of the lid that opens and closes to help neutralize diaper odor when the pail is shut. Then, put another one on the outside of the trash can to help neutralize the blast of gross air that comes out. If you have your diaper pail in a closet or closed in space, one on the ceiling in there would be a good idea too. And, viola, no diaper smell leaking out and stinking up your whole house.
Finding this kind of air freshener isn’t hard, but you have to look someplace different. Apparently, Sally Housewife wants heavily perfumed flower smell in her air purifiers, so you won’t find plain activated charcoal ones in the kitchen or household sections. Instead, check the automotive, garage, laundry, or shoe odor control products. It doesn’t matter what it is “for”, you can use it as long as it isn’t the kind for water-based purposes like fish tanks, aquariums, ponds, or filtering drinking water.
The most common places you’ll find it is refrigerator odor eliminators and pet odor eliminators. Anywhere where you want to get rid of the smell 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In those applications, putting some chemical in the air to perfume it isn’t practical or desirable. You can also use cat litter, if you don’t mind. Just put some inside of a cheesecloth bag to keep it from making a mess and change it every once and a while.
If you ever find a mesh bag with plain activated carbon in it, buy it and hold onto it. When you do find them, grab 5 or 6. You’ll end up wanting them in multiple places and they always prove a little bit tough to find, so you’ll be happy to have some on hand.
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