Cloth Diapers and a Yeast Infection

Somewhere near the end of October, Shane came home with a terrible diaper rash and no matter what I tried, it would not go away. In fact, it went from a simple little red rash to an angry, raw, painful bottom with open sores. I took him to the Doctor where they confirmed what I suspected: yeast rash. Ick. The Dr. prescribed a VERY expensive cream to apply once a day. Thankfully Shane’s insurance took it from being a $290 tube of cream to a $5 tube of cream. Seriously!

Now, with cloth diapers you aren’t supposed to use diaper creams since they ruin your diapers.  So I switched for a while to my go-to disposable, Pampers Cruisers. They made the rash worse, even with the cream (which I had to apply multiple times a day to see any improvement, by the way). So then I went out and bought a pack of the Huggies Naturals, that are supposedly for sensitive bottoms. They seemed to help a little, and after a week or two the yeast infection cleared up. So I went back to my cloth diapers.

And the stupid rash came back. Like, instantly. Sores.  My poor baby! Disposables again. In case you ever wondered, going from soft chemical free cloth diapers to chemical filled disposable diapers is NOT good on little bottoms. I was frustrated that we couldn’t get rid of it and I felt so bad for little Shane, you could tell his bum hurt! And then something popped up in my news feed on Facebook about how yeast bacteria can continue to live in cloth diapers. Ding ding ding! A light bulb went on in my head.  And I decided to make some changes to my cloth diapering routine.

First, I stripped my diapers according to the manufacturer’s instructions. This involved bleach and blue Dawn original dish soap with multiple hot rinses.  I also added tea tree oil as a few websites recommended, as that is a natural antiseptic.

I also ditched the disposable wipes (except for in the diaper bag, currently) and mixed up a solution of water and tea tree oil in a squirt bottle. 

I found all of Shane’s old receiving blankets and cut them up into wipes—they get rough after one baby so I was going to replace them for the next one anyway. And if you’re making your own wipes and don’t have old flannel receiving blankets lying around anywhere, you can get them cheaply at thrift stores or secondhand kid’s stuff stores. I also cut a few into rectangles to fit inside the diaper to line it so that I can use cream and not ruin my diapers.

I also found out a week or two about a cloth diaper store that opened up recently about half an hour from my house. Shane and I took a little jaunt up there to check it out and find some cloth diaper friendly diaper cream as well as wash detergent that’s actually meant for cloth diapers. It was such a cute store and I’m excited to go back! She’s got some great stuff.  The diaper cream she recommended is AMAZING and I love it even though I’ve only used it for a week. It actually smells really good, as well as goes on easily and does a job as good as or better than the popular Desitin or Butt Paste. I am still using the receiving blanket pieces to line the diaper when I use the cream just in case, but it IS supposed to be cloth diaper safe so I am safe either way.

I am still using a disposable at night with the yeast cream, at least for a week or so until I know for SURE that the rash is gone for good. But it’s been gone for a little over a week now and the rest of the redness and irritation went away as soon as I got Shane back in cloth diapers so hopefully we are clear!

And THAT is our (hopefully one and only) adventure with a yeast infection.