"diaper" rash in potty trained girl?

[MamaPhD]

HI guys,

My almost 3yo has been potty trained last month.  She got it right away, had only a couple of accidents the first week and is wearing underwear.  She wears night time diaper at night, but has been waking up dry for more than a week.  So we are thinking of doing away with those, too, now.  So today she tells me her vulva is ouchy, and I look to find a rash!  It is red around her labia and looked like a diaper rash to me.  I put on some desitin and put a diaper on her cuz I didn't want the cream all over her underwear.  I put on more desitin at bed time and put night time diaper on her.  So what is going on?  How can she be getting diaper rash wearing underwear and using potty?  I wipe her when she uses bathroom, really a gentle dab is all we need usually.  Any ideas?

[mamazee]

Sounds like not wiping well enough to me. Maybe try the wet type of TP - like flushable wipes - and see if you can clean the pee up better? If it's her labia it sounds like it's pee that's sitting on her skin. The other potential I can think of is bubble bath - that can do this too. If she takes a bubble bath, her her bathe in plain water from now on.

[Amatullah0]

Originally Posted by mamazee 

 If she takes a bubble bath, her her bathe in plain water from now on.

Or make sure to at least rinse her vulva well after she stands up to get out of the bath. We use water after going to the bathroom too. We keep a small watering can with a short spout next to the toilet for this purpose, though I know many people who use a hand held bidet -- like a diaper sprayer hose. We're cleaner and a plus is we use way less toilet paper!

[Caitlin0919]

Could she be allergic to your laundry detergent? My dd is allergic to most commercial detergents(as am I) and she had a similar issue recently. She's been potty-trained during the day and wearing underwear for about 6 months now and just wears a diaper at night. Her vulva got really red and irritated and she was constantly touching or itching it. It turned out she was allergic to the detergent her preschool teacher uses. The preschool is in the teacher's home and if any of the kids have an accident, she'll usually just wash their clothes there. I talked to the teacher about it and she agreed to just send DD's dirty clothes home with us instead of washing them. We just put a wetbag in her backpack and the teacher puts the dirty clothes in there for us. I re-washed everything that had been washed at school and the rash and itchiness were gone within a few days. We make our own detergent specifically to avoid issues like that.

[JudiAU]

She is wearing underwear, right? Probably touching herself with dirty hands/long fingernails/rubbing. DD did the same thing. We had to have some rules about how to touch our body (which I hated, because I didn't want it to be "bad") but it was clearly the cause of rashy irritation.

[MamaPhD]

Thanks for all your thoughts.  I started to really get in there with wiping and that solved the problem almost right away.  I guess I didn't have as much access at the potty compared to when I was changing her diaper!