For all you mum's out there...

Hi Laura,

Have you tried the Lux Soap flakes, they need to be dissolved in warm water but are quite good for sensitive skin, also Bobaby make washable and re-usable nappy liners that draw the wetness away from the skin and avoids rashes.

Barb

Laura

have you tried Earth Choice brand, I use this with my kids who are both prone to Ecezma, esp Callum, though at 4 he's well out of nappies YEAH...you don't need to use a lot just a little cap full is enough in a bucket and it gets their clothes reasonably clean and I normally do a propper wash of clothes when in civiliasation.

Another thing I used and still use is paw paw ointment on callum's skin - face, tummy, legs if he gets a flare up, it works really well, doesn't inflame his skin, heals it, and he doesn't complain about stinging.

hope this helps a bit

cheers

Lyn

hi laura b My mother advised me when I had children that the secret to her success was a cream you can purchase from Mary Kay. My child was 10 weeks premature and I never ever had a problem with nappy rash or any other skin irritations. I have advised this cream for adults with eczema and they have thanked me for saving their skin irritations. It is a cream called "Extra Emollient Night Cream." It can be used on burns, sunburn, cuts and any skin irritations. It should be kept as a must for your first aid kit. I also used Lux Soap Flakes and that helped. Contact Mary Kay head office in Melbourne to find out who your local consultant is. A tube of cream will cost about $40 and will last for about 6 months. Goodluck there's nothing more heart breaking then a sick child. Karen King

when i lived in the tropics i saw heaps of infants due to my widespread carpentry maintence work on housing commission homes . alot of the aboriginals just went naked . the airflow has got to be the best thing . to hell with the wingers complaing about naked kids and public breastfeeding, the comfort of the child is priority one

There is every chance the problem will disappear within two weeks of leaving home and when all the traveling clothes/blankets/towels have been washed on the road at least once or twice.
Few people ever travel for long enough from home and to a different clime to see what a difference being away from their carpets, furnishings, local environmental allergens etc makes. The typically sick houses and lifestyle we live.

Also you can take this opportunity to change the active ingredient's (but still bring your old potions) to lesser ones ie unscented/non vit e, basic Sorbolene etc. So when in all hope you arrive home with a blotch free child and it flares up again you will be in a better position to further exclude. You have a unique opportunity that not many people today are equiped to experience.

We took our little girl down south to visit the grandparents for a week and bang! eczema.
Those down south houses can certainly be unhealthy, back home by plane and 3 days later eczema gone never to return -unless we do!. More than once we have had visitors form south who's children as if by miracle become no longer allergic until they make home again. 3 times so far. Up here we live on floorboards have very minor expanses of grass lands, no broad-acre farming and a house that suits the tropics ie always ventilated.

Just a thought,

cheers and enjoy the trip. FNQ

Hello, a company by the name of Melaleuca sells wellbeing products all over the world. If you do a search on the web you should be able to find there details in Australia. They have a product range and system to tackle eczema. The system/products cover everything that touchs there skin by washing all there bedsheets and clothes and using a few drops of their oil in the bath water.As you have probably guessed their products are based on the melaleuca tea tree oil. If you can get through all their complex over-marketing you may find an ally in the constant battle with the eczema. My daughter Kristina still gets it occasionally at almost 3 years of age. We have friends that dont use Melaleuca that spend a fortune on specialists advice and their overpriced creams and they are still constantly suffering. Most of their products are pretty good. Similar to Amway but they will tell you that they are nothing like them. We use the products without trying to sell them as I dont like people trying to sell me products when they are getting a cut. Good luck and as all the doctors say in the end, it will eventually disappear.

Hi Laura, in reference to cloth nappies, we had the same problem with both of our children. We found when we were camping the only answer was to buy those really cheap flanalette (?spell) nappies, and cut then into about 6, and use them as liners in disposeable nappies. They were thick enough to excluded the irritation from the disposeable nappy, but thin enough that we were able to carry a reasonable supply of them, and also cheap enought that we could toss them.

A couple of other tips for you:

Use a bucket with a tight fitting lid, (tighter than a nappy bucket!), as a washing machine. Put all clothes, washing powder and water in the bucket in the morning. Drive all day on bad rough road, and the washing in done. You just need to rinse and hang out at camp that night!

We always wash our kids at night, put them in the next days clothes, and then put them to bed. This saves packing PJ's, and you don't have to muck around and dress them in the morning. Ours are bigger now, and we still do it, so that we can have a sleep in, and don't have to get up and get them dressed!

The kids have their sleeping bags in the car under their booster seats. Saves storage space, and is easily accessable if arriving at camp late at night!

I am sure that you will be able to give us heaps of hints too, when you get home!!!

Jo

Hi, Worked in the soap factory many years ago and in those days Sunlight was actually a mixture that included a lot of the left-overs and off cuts from the fancy soaps.

My suggestions;

1. Rinse & rinse & rinse to make sure that there is no soap residue left in clothes after washing.

2. Sea water is a great healer of skin complaints, Let the kids (& adults) paddle and sit in it as often as you can.

3. Raw skin is VERY suseptable to bugs & fungus when in a sweaty climate. So just in case, see if you can get a tube of Resolve Plus 0.5 from your chemist. It is a pharmacy only medicine unfortunately not for use on children under two. Ask the pharmacy if there is an infant version.
It's great for both male & female itchie areas, athletes foot, tinea, eczema/dermatitus etc. I won't travel in humid climates without it (just in case). Nothing worse then getting a horrible itch in an awkward place when you are 'on the road'.

Our 5c. Our lily is now 16 months.

1. we use borax and vinegar for the nappies instead of powder (which we use for ourselves).
2. we use during the day the re-useable ones with inserts (can make or buy or cut up a cloth nappy)
3. if any rash appears, and usually these days only if she fails to tell us she has done a poo and we don't notice, a hippy thing called "Lavender Balm" that, and i am a skeptic, takes any rash away before the next day without fail.

I think the combination of all the above led to Lily really never suffering any recurrent rash nappy rash problem.

Curious thing is Huggies don't work on lily because they end up releasing their gel crystals and we find them a pain to remove. Now this is weird because my brother and zillions of others use huggies so i think it must have something to do with perhaps the borax, dunno.

The downside to borax is of course it is poisonous in its raw form so if you are travelling you need to store it in a very safe place, but i suppose with an 8mth mainly just screw very tightly.

Mum and lily are still asleep but i'll run this past her when she wakes up.

And public breastfeeding, mum's a big fan.

HI Laura,

Poor baby, eczema is so horrible to have. I have it myself and it can be so painful.

I use cloth with my little one and we don't add any whiteners to our wash - just use the detergents and vinegar and let the sun do the rest.

Lux flakes are very different to other soaps. They are very gentle and generally the recommended thing for people with sensitive skin.

I love the idea of getting a really good waterproof bucket and washing that way, you could use your cloth nappies and just take a few disposables for emergencies. There are a few new disposables out that might be OK for her - i think i saw some in Woolies - organic or cotton based. Have a look.

As she will be over one when you go she can easily run around and have lots of no nappy time (Evie always saves a few nappies this way).

Have a great trip,
Fiona

Otherwise, do you use fleece liners in your cloths? If so take them with you and put them in the disposables, the fleece would be better than flannelette as it wicks away the moisture leaving a pretty dry bottom (flan is still cotton and while it would protect bum from nappy it won't keep it dry). You can easily store the dirty liners to wash when you are at a camp ground.

our kids didnt suffer with Eczema...maybe due to the following
with our first we noticed that the baby wipes gave he hell once they had nappy rash, so we stopped using..
at the slightest sign of redness we washed in warm water...no soaps or anything else
did this with other two and never had problems

Eldest had slight eczema on face. Used pawpaw ointment.

For the other end I found that Johnson's nappy change creme worked well.

Never had a problem with Huggies but you cannot leave them until they 'max out', that just creates ammonia and irritation.

Warm water and Lux work well for all clothing. Use it for everyone. The clothing is softer to wear and does not have the harsh feel as experienced with detergents.

Never use fabric softeners, they are a certain recipe for a rash.

Laura

My wife uses Nutirmetics stuff called CLC as I react to most comercial soap powders and liquids. If I use normal stuff out bush or at home I develop Eczema but using the clc we don't have to even rinse it out just wash, dry and wear which is pretty handy on long remote trips as it conserves water. Not cheap and you have to get use to not having suds. We just chuck in the bucket on the roof rack in the morning, wring it out and hang it out to dry in the evening and wear it the next day

Hi Laura,

Have you tried Penaten cream? Worked well on our kids when young. We still use it for all sorts of skin problems. Seems to be a zinc based product.

Kind regards