cloth diaper rashes all-the-time

[shayflo919]

We have been cloth diapering (prefolds with thirties covers) our 19 month old daughter for the last year with a few rashes here and there but nothing major until recently. For the past month or so we have been battling major rashes constantly! We try to let her air out as much as possible, we change her diaper very frequently, etc but they come back. Some have been so bad she's gotten blisters.

When the rashes get real bad we get some disposables and it clears up right away. The day we go back to prefolds it comes back.

We've stripped twice with no difference, we've never switched detergents. They do not stink. I need some ideas, I'm worried we might have to give up using cloth if I can't figure this out!

Our standard wash procedure is warm wash followed by hot, both with small amount of biokleen free and clear. The stripping process was rinse cold (no detergent), wash hot with blue dawn, rinse 4x cold with no detergent, final wash with vinegar.

[sere234]

Not sure if it will help but we do a cold wash with 1/2 scoop of soap followed by a hot wash and rinse and a cold rinse. 2nd wash gets 1 scoop of soap and unfortunately a couple tablespoons of bleach. Have you tried a different wash routine? Sounds like you have buildup even with the stripping.

[shayflo919]

Bleach might be the answer, I'll give that a try. Thanks!

[Earthmoma]

It sounds like you have a buildup! My wash routine is cold rinse, hot wash w.soap &, another cold rinse. Ive tried stripping a diaper with the blue dawn and it didnt work. Maybe try another method fot stripping the diapers? Also, make sure the diaper cream your using is cloth diaper safe! Good luck

[shayflo919]

I'm starting to think this may be a yeast issue. That would make sense in that nothing we've done so far would kill yeast on diapers and we don't have that stink associated with detergent build up...
Bring on the bleach I guess!

[LeighPF]

For both my kids persistant rash with blisters was a secondary staph infection. I disinfected the diapers (bleach), but the key was getting them treated with antibiotics from the doctor. We stayed in cloth the whole time.

Go get the rash checked and go from there.

[shayflo919]

The rash totally clears up within a day of switching to disposables though. Then comes back within two days (and gets worse and worse) if we use cloth again.

[redcanary]

Same thing happened with my daughter...rash, switch to disposable, then switch back and the rash got worse and worse! We finally figured out that yeast was the issue. It was a cycle of diapers infecting her, she infected the diapers, and so on. So we kept her in disposable for a few days and treated her bottom with a variety of yeast killing things, grapefruit seed extract, tea tree oil (use sparingly! burns! we learned the hard way!), colloidal silver, coconut oil, and even an otc antifungal. For the diapers, we ran them through the sanitary cycle on the washing machine. I read that yeast is killed by temps of at least 122 degrees, but double check. Diluted bleach would do too. I don't think you should use the sanitary cycle for anything but cotton/hemp, like covers. Soak those in hot water with GSE, or maybe the bleach. There are some good articles about diapers and yeast on the internet. Good luck, I understand how frustrating it is!!
 

[faithgg]

My younger daughter can't wear PUL dopes without getting a rash. Once we switched to all fleece and wool covers, we never had trouble with rashes again. Might be worth a try. Good luck.

[Ola_]

This is a little late, but I wanted to mention that we had a similar issue with DD around that age. I think in our case it was her pee getting stronger or something (she still goes through lots of diapers so I don't think it's that she's not drinking enough). We were using mostly fitteds and she seemed to almost always an irritated bum, especially in the mornings. I got a bunch more pockets to use and that seemed to do the trick, I think it keeps the strong pee from her skin better. Unfortunately pockets don't seem to do the trick for us for night time (they leak, maybe because she sleeps on her side a lot?) so we use that one disposable a day. For nap time I cut some fleece liners to use over her fitteds, which may be another easy option for you to try if you haven't figured out something that works for you yet.

[KarmasLilHelper]

I know that this reply is late, but my now-3 year old daughter actually had problems with the PUL diaper covers.  I tried bleaching, boiling, replacing, using liners, etc, etc, etc.  Nothing worked until I tried using wool covers.  It immediately solved the problem.  My other children never had issues with PUL, so I'm not sure why my dd happened to be so sensitive to it.

[petitpois]

I just saw this and want to reply in case someone else is going through this -- another possibility is ammonia burns!

My 17mo dd has been in cloth since birth, we've had very few rashes, but lately we've had a persistent rash on one side at the edge of the diaper (also using mostly prefolds, with bummis / flip covers). I looked into this and there seemed to be two possibilities, excema (with repeated irritation from the side of the diaper) or burns from pee drying in the diapers, forming ammonia crystals which do not wash out under normal laundry conditions, and which get "reactivated" when they get wet again, i.e. when the baby pees in a clean diaper next time.

I had no idea about this possibility and so after stripping and doing a day in disposables, I'm now following advice on the internet to avoid ammonia isses: we've started rinsing our pee diapers before we throw them in the bin or big wetbag to sit for a couple of days. The rash is fading a little since we started rinsing under the tap this week, but it's still there, and may in fact be excema - I still wanted to be sure to avoid the ammonia just in case it was contributing or ever might become an issue. We've never had blisters, but that sounds scary and suspiciously like a chemical burn :( We also haven't dealt with yeast, so maybe that's it in the OP's case, but now I think if you get rashes whenever the baby is in cloth, it's worth looking at how you are storing your wet diapers before washing them. Or did everybody know that already?

Edited by petitpois - 4/3/13 at 3:55pm