Adventures in cloth diapering and a sick baby update

A diaper rash pretty much comes with the territory when a baby's been having as many GI issues as Julia has been. She's had a yeast diaper rash for awhile now. Like, two months awhile, not two weeks awhile. And I've been doing a pretty good job keeping up with it, but I just can't get ahead of it.

Having diaper-free time seems to be the #1 way to make her tush get better, but now that the weather isn't so great for it outside, and it's even pretty chilly inside the house, it's tough to let her run around half-naked. Plus there's the obvious "well what if she goes to the bathroom on something?!" 

So... enter cloth prefolds and wool diaper covers. I already had a bunch of prefolds since I was using them as burpcloths, and I already had some diaper pins because I was using them for decorations other things in the nursery. And after much research, the internet convinced me that wool diaper covers are completely magical and the absolute best in breathability. After I got over my initial disappointment in our local store's selection (the selection was fine, I just wanted a prettier color) (I promised myself that if we do this regularly I'll go get something adorable off of Etsy), I forked over the $30 for a wool diaper cover. 

We tried them out today. They are much softer than I expected wool would be and I'm even coming around and thinking they're kind of cute. The major disadvantage is that you need to change them more frequently than even regular cloth pocket diapers. As soon as baby pees once, it's time for a change, which can get annoying when you have a super-water-drinker like J. Another disadvantage is that the cotton prefolds underneath them are hard to get right, although that's hopefully user error and something that'll improve over time as I get better with them. 

Her tush doesn't really look any better tonight, but I'm going to try to spend some time each day with these, around the house, and see if that doesn't help out with the rash. I hear some people use them for overnight, and I can see how using a more breathable fabric for 10 hours a day could really help with keeping rash to a minimum. If this goes well, I'm going to look into wool longies (basically a diaper cover in the shape of pants so I can use them as pajama bottoms) (also super-duper cute) (also super-duper expensive).

I mean, you can't tell me that's not kind of cute.

On the GI issues front, Julia has been doing much better today. She's been eating much better, her body temp is better, and things are looking better overall. Her sleep is worse - and she's consequently still been a little cranky - since we've been back home but we'll keep working on that. If she's physically feeling better, the rest will fall into place much more easily.

I know! That's how I feel too, JJ!

I'm not sure if it was the milk, or maybe just two viruses back-to-back, but either way, I'm trying to resist going back to her normal schedule and diet RIGHT AWAY RIGHT NOW, which is freaking me out because I'm worried she's going to be taking formula from a bottle for most of her nutrition from now until when she starts first grade at this rate. But, I'm resisting my urge to freak out and planning to wait a week or two and then slowly reintroduce the foods we cut out (mostly dairy, for those interested). We'll also see what the pedi has to say on Monday about this whole thing. I'm assuming she's not going to tell me anything I don't already know but that's probably a little unfair of me.

Anyways, we're having a nice, low-key weekend. R and I got out for a solo dinner for the first time in a long long time, and it was really nice. We need to do that more often. We're starting to make our holiday plans and it's kind of exciting - Julia obviously will be way more into the holidays this year than last year, and I'm also calmer because I feel a lot more secure about handling a baby and holiday shopping, cards, etc. We're going to blink and it's going to be spring! Until then, I have many much things to do.

Hope everyone else is having a nice weekend too!